Verbatim

"Mr. Arafat has failed as a leader."
GEORGE W. BUSH,
scolding Palestinian President Yasser Arafat for failing to stop attacks against Israel and forcing the resignation of Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas

"The more time that has passed, the more I think it's unlikely that anything will be found."
HANS BLIX,
former chief U.N. weapons inspector, on Iraq's elusive weapons of mass destruction.

"The idea was to say things over the top so you could get the headlines."
ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER,
candidate for governor of California, explaining why he gave a magazine interview in the 1970s in which he claimed to have participated in orgies

"Do they expect policemen to live like priests?"
MANILA POLICE OFFICER,
after President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo's government ordered a crackdown on police spending long hours in bars after work

"Osama bin Laden is the only one who knows exactly what I'm going through."
R. KELLY,
hip-hop star awaiting a child-pornography trial in Illinois, complaining about the criticism he has received from people who "don't even know" him

"There are no excuses for being a vagabond."
SAMAK SUNDARAVEJ,
Governor of Bangkok, explaining his campaign to rid the city of homeless people ahead of the apec summit next month

"We had a good old row."
BONO,
U2 front man, on his meeting with President George W. Bush, at which they discussed aids funding

"He's the classic Horatio Alger story. Unfortunately, he was like Horatio Alger on steroids."
JOHN C. COFFEE,
Columbia University securities-law professor, describing the blue-collar background and $139.5 million pay package of ex-New York Stock Exchange chairman Dick Grasso, who resigned amid anger over his compensation