Verbatim

"If the President is willing, and if my wife approves, and if the doctors say it's O.K., then I'd be happy to serve a second term." DICK CHENEY, Vice President, on the probability of his running for re-election in 2004

"We Americans don't make unprovoked attacks against other nations." DICK ARMEY, House majority leader, urging caution on the Bush Administration about launching an attack on Iraq

"We have been here since 1922, and someone throws a bomb. I don't know why. It is somebody who must be against Christianity." ERNEST LALL, former director of a Presbyterian hospital in Pakistan where a terrorist attack killed three nurses

"Bernie was endearing, but he didn't have even a working knowledge of the business." SUSAN KALLA, market analyst, on the failings of former WorldCom head Bernard Ebbers

"A cigarette in the hands of a Hollywood star onscreen is a gun aimed at a 12- or 14-year-old." JOE ESZTERHAS, screenwriter, now suffering from throat cancer, apologizing for putting so much smoking in movies like Basic Instinct

Sources: AP (3), New York Times (2)