Verbatim

'I had to hold my nose and stop those firms from failing.' BEN BERNANKE, U.S. Federal Reserve chairman, citing fears of a "second Great Depression" to explain why he used taxpayer money to bail out firms like AIG last fall

'These people are obviously reaching the end of their rope.' RON REDMON, spokesman for the U.N. refugee agency, on the nearly quarter of a million Somalis who have been fleeing the country's violence since May

'A 30-second phone call, and I'm like, "What? That's all he's got for me?'" MARK BUEHRLE, of the Chicago White Sox, joking about President Barack Obama, an outspoken White Sox fan, who called to congratulate him on becoming the 18th pitcher in major league baseball history to throw a perfect game

'If you see me dab at my eyes, I'm not sad. It's chemotherapy, and I've made the Kleenex industry wealthy.' ARLEN SPECTER, Pennsylvania Senator, proclaiming himself "fit as a fiddle" and "ready for re-election" despite lingering side effects from cancer treatment last year

'I have never had great admiration for him, and I never will.' ALBERTO CONTADOR, Tour de France winner, on his relationship with fellow Astana-team cyclist and seven-time Tour de France champion Lance Armstrong

'How about, in honor of the American soldier, you quit makin' things up?' SARAH PALIN, former Alaska governor, advising members of the press on how to treat her successor

'It took a 7-year-old to tell us what it was. We thought it was just some type of new tagger.' JEFF SUTTER, captain of the Wauwatosa, Wis., police department, after a Harry Potter fan vandalized 80 local traffic signs to make them read stop voldemort

BACK & FORTH

North Korea

'Maybe it's the mother in me, or the experience I've had with small children and unruly teenagers and people who are demanding attention: don't give it to them.' HILLARY CLINTON, U.S. Secretary of State, likening North Korea's refusal to halt its nuclear activities to the behavior of a disobedient child

'Sometimes she looks like a primary-school girl and sometimes a pensioner going shopping.' A NORTH KOREAN FOREIGN MINISTRY SPOKESMAN, accusing Clinton of being "unaware of elementary etiquette"

Media

'Certainly your view can't be discounted.' LOU DOBBS, CNN host, to a caller on his radio show who claimed that President Barack Obama was not a natural-born U.S. citizen

'It seems this story is dead--because anyone who still is not convinced doesn't really have a legitimate beef.' JON KLEIN, president of CNN/U.S., in a leaked memo to staffers of Dobbs' show, noting that the beliefs of the so-called birther movement had been definitively disproved

LEXICON

Stealth Starbucks n.--New cafés opened by the coffee chain that forgo the Starbucks brand

USAGE: "In the continued flailings of the Starbucks chain, here's a new one: the stealth Starbucks store. A Seattle outlet of the 16,000-store coffee behemoth is being rebranded without visible Starbucks identifiers, as 15th Avenue Coffee and Tea." --Chicago Tribune, July 17, 2009

Sources: BBC; New York Times; Chicago Sun-Times; New York Times; Reuters; Wall Street Journal; Chicago Tribune

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