Verbatim

'Personally, I am against third-generation dynastic succession.'

KIM JONG NAM, the estranged and exiled eldest son of North Korea's leader, Kim Jong Il, and grandson of the state's founder, Kim Il Sung, opposing his father's decision to appoint his younger half brother Kim Jong Un as the country's next leader

'I don't want them to be brainwashed into thinking that homosexuality is an equally valid or successful option.'

CARL PALADINO, Republican candidate for governor of New York, speaking about children and homosexuality; he later apologized, saying he "should have chosen better words"

'It flew beautifully.'

GEORGE WHITESIDES, chief executive of Virgin Galactic, whose space-tourism rocket made its first solo glide flight Oct. 10, marking a major step toward commercial space travel

'At least I have a pair of perfect legs.'

LIU WEI, an armless man who plays the piano with his toes, on winning the China's Got Talent competition with his rendition of the James Blunt song "You're Beautiful"

'Until the end of my mandate, I will put new ideas and reforms on the table.'

NICOLAS SARKOZY, French President, in the wake of a massive nationwide protest of up to 3 million people against the government's decision to change the retirement age from 60 to 62

'Tell David Cameron that if he screws up my beloved NHS, I'll come back and bloody haunt him.'

CLAIRE RAYNER, a British campaigner for the National Health Service--a public provider facing spending cuts--sending a warning to the U.K. Prime Minister with what her relatives say she wanted to be her final words; Rayner, 79, died Oct. 11

'There are no unicorns working in our DVD production plant.'

AL JEAN, executive producer of The Simpsons, on an opening sequence designed by British graffiti artist Banksy that takes viewers on a dystopian journey into a sweatshop producing Simpsons merchandise where, among other satirical moments, a unicorn is used to punch holes in DVDs.

TALKING HEADS

Patrick Cockburn

Explaining why Pakistan is not a failed state, in the Independent:

"Pakistan is undoubtedly in a bad way, but ... the problem ... is not that the country is going to implode or sink into anarchy, but that successive crises do not produce revolutionary or radical change ... The merry-go-round of open or veiled military rule alternates with feeble civilian governments. But power stays in the hands of an English-speaking élite that inherited ... a sense of superiority over the rest of the population."

--10/8/10

Gregory Rodriguez

On how all Americans contribute to the problem of illegal immigration, in the Los Angeles Times: