Verbatim

"I don't want to see anybody do any more goddamn press conferences...Don't do another press conference until the resources are in the city."
RAY NAGIN, New Orleans mayor, complaining in a radio interview about the slow pace of relief efforts

"What the U.S. has done is little short of spitting at the DPRK."
NORTH KOREAN FOREIGN MINISTRY official, announcing the country would delay the resumption of talks over its nuclear weapons program in protest over U.S. joint military exercises with South Korea

"Is there no one else?"
EDMUNDO REYES, Filipino congressman, pleading for the six signatures necessary to pursue a call for impeachment against Philippines president Gloria Macapagal Arroyo. Her congressional allies successfully blocked moves to impeach her last week

"Sharon gave and gave and gave some more, and the Palestinians got more and more and more. And what did we get in return? The answer is: nothing, nothing and nothing."
BENJAMIN NETANYAHU, former Israeli prime minister, announcing his intention to try to mount a challenge to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon as leader of the governing Likud Party

"I have two dreams. One is to return to the motherland and the other is to see democracy in Hong Kong."
MARTIN LEE, founding chairman of Hong Kong's Democratic Party, on an invitation from chief executive Donald Tsang to visit China. Lee, like many of Hong Kong's pro-Democracy lawmakers, has been banned from the mainland since the 1989 Tiananmen massacre

"Why should I repudiate a successfully conducted operation?"
SHAMIL BASAYEV, Chechen rebel leader, on the school attack he plotted in Beslan, Russia a year ago last week, which killed 320 people