Verbatim

'The real solution is to deliver services ... rather than turn Haiti into a military state.'

TED CONSTAN, chief program officer for the relief organization Partners in Health, on the withdrawal of U.S. troops stationed in Haiti since the nation's Jan. 12 earthquake

'A ban on eating them would show China has reached a new level of civilization.'

CHANG JIWEN, a professor at the Chinese Academy of the Social Sciences, on the Chinese government's consideration of legislation that would make eating cats and dogs illegal

'We used to hustle on over the border for health care ... And I think, isn't that kind of ironic now?'

SARAH PALIN, former governor of Alaska, admitting that her family used to go to Canada for medical treatment when she was a child; Canada has a single-payer system, which Palin opposes

'These were not professionals.'

RAINER WENDT, German police-union head, on four bandits who stormed a poker tournament in Berlin and stole about $330,000 in jackpot money in a chaotic heist caught on videotape

'To the extent the State of the Union has degenerated into a political pep rally, I'm not sure why we're there.'

JOHN ROBERTS, U.S. Chief Justice, questioning whether Supreme Court Justices should have to attend the yearly address, after having had to sit "expressionless" while some members of Congress cheered Obama's Jan. 27 criticism of the court's decision to overturn a ban on corporate political spending

'Law is mind without reason. I'll return.'

LIL WAYNE, rapper, in a Twitter post the day he began a twice-delayed yearlong prison sentence on a weapons conviction

'Not only did I grope him, I tickled him until he couldn't breathe.'

ERIC MASSA, Democratic New York Congressman, on a staffer's sexual-harassment accusations; Massa, who resigned March 9, maintained that anything can be taken "out of context"

TALKING HEADS

Jerry H. Trachtman

Downplaying the controversy over a child who directed air traffic at JFK International, on InjuryBoard.com

"The recent report ... has the aviation alarmists in an uproar ... Unprofessional conduct by the controllers involved? Yes. Any effect on the safety of flight? No ... The boy was clearly saying what he was told to say ... There are enough real issues regarding aviation safety without having to manufacture phantom issues. The pilots on the receiving end clearly had no concerns. No one else should either." --3/3/10

Scott Mendelson

Reflecting on Kathryn Bigelow's historic Oscar win, on the Huffington Post:

"She was absolutely deserving ... Not because she's a woman and not because she's a woman who makes stereotypically 'guy' movies, but because The Hurt Locker was a damn good movie and she was the primary reason it worked ... The fact that it took 82 years for the Academy to give the Best Director award to a female filmmaker should be cause for shame and embarrassment, rather than self-lionizing accolades." --3/8/10