Verbatim

'Free and fair elections do not seem possible.'

NAWAZ SHARIF, former Prime Minister of Pakistan, who joined with Benazir Bhutto, also a former Prime Minister, to call for a possible boycott in support of more open elections

'It's really simple: don't break into people's houses, and you won't get shot.'

KIM JACKSON, a supporter of Joe Horn, who shot and killed two men he suspected of burglarizing his neighbor's house in Pasadena, Texas. On Dec. 2, hundreds of supporters and protesters clashed in front of Horn's home

'He is someone who was in need of help and sought attention in absolutely the wrong way.'

HILLARY CLINTON, on Leeland Eisenberg, who took hostages at one of Clinton's New Hampshire campaign offices on Nov. 30. Frustrated that he could not afford mental-health treatment, Eisenberg went to the office after seeing a Clinton health-care campaign ad

'Everyone is stealing from the state. It's a very large meal, and everyone wants to eat.'

ADEL ADEL AL-SUBIHAWI, a prominent Shi'ite leader in Sadr City, on rampant corruption in Iraq, which was recently ranked by Transparency International as the world's third most corrupt country

'I went out there to have an adventure and got a bit more ... than I bargained for.'

GILLIAN GIBBONS, the British teacher who spent more than a week in a Sudanese jail for letting her students name a teddy bear Muhammad; she returned to Britain on Dec. 4

'The program is not going to change.'

DON IMUS, on his return to broadcasting after he was fired for making offensive comments about the Rutgers women's basketball team this past April

Sources: New York Times; Houston Chronicle; CNN; New York Times; Times (London); AP