Verbatim

'I had a sickening feeling every time I thought about it. I still do.'

GEORGE W. BUSH, writing in his new memoir, Decision Points, that he still feels bad no weapons of mass destruction were found in Iraq, since his Administration predicated the war on that assertion

'We continue to warn service members that it is unsafe to come out as long as this law remains on the books.'

AUBREY SARVIS, executive director of the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, following a federal appeals court's decision to keep the military's "Don't ask, don't tell" policy in effect despite a previous ruling that found it unconstitutional

'Some of the Grimm's Fairy Tales are quite grim. Are you going to ban them too?'

ANTONIN SCALIA, Supreme Court Justice, during oral arguments over a law banning the sale of violent video games to minors, questioning how society defines what is too violent

'It's better to like beautiful girls than to be gay.'

SILVIO BERLUSCONI, Italian Prime Minister, while speaking about his latest scandal, in which a teenage girl (right) told of the "bunga bunga" orgies she witnessed at his home when she was 17

'I'm at that stage where I don't think I can write pop music anymore.'

ELTON JOHN, saying he feels too old to compete with stars like Lady Gaga

'One day you're world champions, and the next day, no toys for you.'

DANIEL CONWAY, of the California Restaurant Association, bemoaning a San Francisco city vote that bans giving free toys with meals that contain more than set levels of calories, sugar and fat; the vote, aimed at improving children's diets, came one day after the city's baseball team won the World Series

'If it was a real joint, Wolf, I would have smoked it.'

BILL MAHER, host of HBO's Real Time, discussing with CNN's Wolf Blitzer a clip in which actor Zach Galifianakis appears to smoke marijuana on Maher's show

TALKING HEADS

Christopher Caldwell

Arguing against American criticism of Germany's economic policy, in the Weekly Standard:

"Germany has been scolded ... for saving too much and spending too little ... And now the consequences of Germany's waywardness are clear. [Its economy] is growing at almost 9% a year. Its unemployment rate has fallen to 7.5% ... The second-biggest Western economy appears to be handling this deep recession much more effectively than the biggest ... This means that something in our economic dogmas is probably false."

--10/30/10

Malalai Joya

The former Afghan parliamentarian on why elections alone will not save her country, in the Guardian:

"We had another so-called parliamentary election in September, but I chose not to run ... The only change that can make us hopeful about the future is the strengthening and expansion of a national anti-fundamentalist and democracy-loving movement ... by Afghans. And while we want the world's support and solidarity, we neither need nor want NATO's occupying forces."

--11/2/10

Farhad Manjoo

Writing on Slate about the U.S.'s rickety Internet infrastructure: