Verbatim

"Chairman Pitt has violated the First Law of Holes, which is, When you are in one, stop digging." EDWARD MARKEY, Massachusetts Congressman, on SEC chairman Harvey Pitt's nomination of William H. Webster to head an accounting-oversight board

"I see a great danger if we go it alone." WALTER CRONKITE, former CBS anchor, on the prospect of U.S. military action against Iraq

"The Queen has come through for me." PAUL BURRELL, former butler to Princess Diana, after Queen Elizabeth issued a statement clearing him of accusations that he stole 310 items belonging to the late Princess

"I might have made a tactical error not going to a physician for 20 years. It was one of those phobias that didn't pay off." WARREN ZEVON, rock musician, on his diagnosis of terminal lung cancer, in an interview with David Letterman

"He had nothing to do with that gangsta thing." DARYL JENKINS, record-store clerk, on the killing of Run-D.M.C.'s Jam Master Jay

"Your wish was to play the organ. Now you can play it for the angels." WRITTEN ON A COFFIN in southern Italy, where an earthquake killed 29 people, most of them children

Sources: Wall Street Journal; AP; Washington Post; CBS; New York Times (2)