Verbatim: May 23, 2005

"What message are we sending [when] we have sought to appoint an ambassador to the United Nations who himself has been accused of being arrogant, of not listening to his friends, of acting unilaterally, of bullying those who do not have the ability to properly defend themselves?"

SENATOR GEORGE VOINOVICH, the pivotal Ohio Republican on the Foreign Relations Committee, explaining why he plans to vote against the confirmation of John R. Bolton as U.N. ambassador. Voinovich nonetheless let the vote move to the full Senate

"We are not electing Mr. Congeniality. We do not need Mr. Milquetoast in the United Nations."

SENATOR GEORGE ALLEN, Republican of Virginia, speaking in support of the Bolton nomination

"I'm having so much fun, we're going for another lap."

PRESIDENT BUSH, behind the wheel of Russian President Vladimir Putin's 1956 Volga, after getting some help from Putin on handling the gearshift

"There were times when some people were really aggressive about raising it, and we said, 'For that?'"

TOM RIDGE, former head of Homeland Security, saying the terrorism-threat level was often raised against the advice of his agency

"We were agreeing so much with each other, I think people thought, 'The end is near.'"

SENATOR HILLARY CLINTON, Democrat of New York, after a meeting with former foe Newt Gingrich about health-care reform

"I think I would have realized if something like that was happening to me, whether I was asleep or not."

MACAULAY CULKIN, testifying in the Michael Jackson trial that although he often slept in Jackson's bed, he was not sexually abused

"It's like TV Land going to Auschwitz and proposing to erect a statue of Colonel Klink."

JOHN CARR, a former member of the Salem, Mass., Historic District Commission, on TV Land's proposal to erect a statue of Samantha, of TV's Bewitched, in the town famous for executing witches

Sources: New York Times; Washington Post; New York Times; USA Today; AP; Chicago Tribune; Washington Post