'I'd like to thank the Academy for courageously breaking the mold this time.'
Herbie Hancock, pianist and composer, on being the first jazz artist in 43 years to win a Grammy Award for Album of the Year
'The impact of the insane response to my cartoon will last for the rest of my life.'
Kurt Westergaard, cartoonist for the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten, after Danish police arrested three men in an alleged plot to kill him over his 2005 cartoon depicting the Prophet Muhammad that triggered riots around the world
'It seems unavoidable.'
Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury, on the possibility that elements of Islamic Shari'a law could be applied in the U.K. His comments provoked a furious reaction and calls for his resignation
'You didn't say anything about our trades, did you? Otherwise you're dead meat.'
Jerome Kerviel, rogue Société Générale trader, talking with a broker in an Oct. 11 online chat about risky trades that are believed to have cost
the bank $7.2 billion
'My conscience will not allow me to continue with business as usual.'
Steven Spielberg, film director, announcing he would withdraw as artistic adviser to this summer's Beijing Olympics over China's stance on the conflict in Darfur, Sudan
'This government won't fall because of this.'
Xanana Gusmao, Prime Minister of East Timor, about a shoot-out that wounded the country's President, José Ramos-Horta, and left rebel leader Alfredo Reinado dead
Numbers
Immigration
19%
Projected percentage of the U.S. population in 2050 that will be foreign-born
1910
Year the percentage of immigrants in the U.S. last reached its highest recorded point — 15%
Gender Differences
40%
Percentage of U.S. women who closely followed recent news stories on tornadoes in the South and Midwest, compared with only 25% of men. A new study finds that women focus more on stories about weather, health and safety
40%
Percentage of men who closely followed stories on tension between the U.S. and Iran; 27% of women tuned in. Men generally favored sports, politics and international affairs in the study
Art
$440 million
Value of art auctioned last year by Sotheby's and Christie's in Paris
$800 million
Value of art auctioned in Asia in 2007. On the strength of artists like Cai Guoqiang, whose gunpowder-on-paper abstracts sold for $9.5 million in November, China has passed France as the world's third largest art market according to a recent economic study
Markets
$3 billion
Amount raised by India's Reliance Power Ltd. prior to its Feb. 11 initial public offering, the Bombay Stock Exchange's largest ever listing
17%
Percentage that Reliance Power shares dropped on the day of their trading debut
Verbatim Sources: AFP; New York Times; BBC; International Herald Tribune; AFP; Independent. Numbers Sources: Pew Research Center; New York Times; Pew Research Center (2); The Art Newspaper (2); Bloomberg (2)