Verbatim

"I can't understand why foreign governments would intervene in a spiritual matter and try to turn it into a diplomatic problem."
JUNICHIRO KOIZUMI, Japanese Prime Minister, on the outcry from China and South Korea over his visits to the Yasukuni Shrine, where millions of Japanese war dead are honored, including 14 Class-A war criminals

"They were yelling 'Allahu akbar [God is great]!' and then were slowly buried. I saw them buried alive."
SARYONO, a fruit farmer from Cijeruk, Indonesia, where 200 people were believed to have been killed when a landslide engulfed his village on the island of Java "It wasn't bad/ just went to sleep."
MARTIN TOLER JR., one of 12 American miners who died last week after an explosion at the Sago coal mine in West Virginia, in a scrawled note found with his body

"We will not take a step back on our path."
MAHMOUD AHMADINEJAD, Iranian President, on his country's stated plans to resume nuclear research this week

"We were feeding 600,000 people in December. As of Jan. 1, we are feeding nobody."
RICHARD RAGAN, North Korea director for the World Food Programme, after the U.N. agency halted all food aid to the impoverished country at the request of its own government

"It's not hard to believe. He can be very absent-minded."
MARIE CORNELIUSEN, mother of artist Trevor Corneliusen of Olympia, Washington, who chained and padlocked his feet together for a self-portrait while camping in California's Mojave Desert and had to hobble for 12 hours to find help after he lost the key