Verbatim

'Saying that we have won is an understatement. Kenya has been reborn.'

KIRAITU MURUNGI, Kenya's Minister of Energy, on the nationwide vote that overwhelmingly approved a new constitution that will lessen the powers of the President

'If you can hold it down on the smokes and the cocktails, you may be well advised to do so.'

CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS, famed author and columnist, warning others against his bad habits after his recent diagnosis of life-threatening esophageal cancer

'It was a recruiting and meeting point for Islamic radicals.'

FRANK RESCHREITER, a spokesman for Hamburg's state interior ministry, on the shuttering of a German mosque that was once frequented by some of the 9/11 attackers

'There was an unconfirmed report that these players have gone through torture.'

MOHAMED BIN HAMMAM, Asian Football Confederation chief, announcing that FIFA is investigating whether North Korea may have mistreated some of its players and sentenced its coach to hard labor after the team lost all of its World Cup matches

'Radical prohibition strategies have never worked.'

VICENTE FOX, former Mexican President, calling for Mexico to legalize drugs, which, he argues, would hurt the cartels that have turned parts of the country into battlegrounds

'If this wasn't a selfish, boy's-own adventure, I don't think it would have worked.'

ED STAFFORD, a former British-army captain who on Aug. 9 became the first person to walk the length of the Amazon River

'It feels like they're just sticking a finger in the air and guessing.'

JOHN MUTTON, leader of the Coventry city council, on the British government's methods for deciding which programs to cancel as it seeks to trim $130 billion in spending over the next five years

TALKING HEADS

Jackson Diehl

Writing in the Washington Post that it's too early to tell whether President Raúl Castro will modernize Cuba:

"I ... find it hard to believe that Raúl Castro is Cuba's Mikhail Gorbachev. If anything, he resembles Yuri Andropov, one of Gorbachev's aged and ailing predecessors, who knew the Soviet system was unsustainable but lacked the will or the political clout to change it ... The time for real change--and for deeper engagement by the United States--has not yet arrived."

--8/9/10

John Gruber

Discussing on his blog daringfireball.net why the demise of Google Wave was inevitable:

"It's always seemed remarkable to me that they even shipped Wave in the first place. Interesting technology? Sure. But as a product, it was almost impossible to describe. When has a new product been successful when no one knows or understands what they're supposed to use it for? It was the most Google-y product ever--no other company would have or could have shipped it."

--8/4/10

John Bolton

Urging a firm U.S. response to China, in the Wall Street Journal: