Verbatim

"This is the political equivalent of streaking: you show up, you run across the room naked, and you get attention." STAN OFTELIE, president and CEO of the Orange County Business Council, on the proliferation of candidates who are running for Governor in the California recall election

"We must never, ever indulge in the condescending voices who allege that some people in Africa or in the Middle East are just not interested in freedom ... The view was wrong in 1963 in Birmingham, and it is wrong in 2003 in Baghdad." CONDOLEEZZA RICE, National Security Adviser, speaking at the National Association of Black Journalists' convention

"I've just about concluded that the real problem may be the President himself and that next year we ought to fire him and get a new one." AL GORE, former Vice President, in a speech at New York University in which he also said he would not be a candidate in 2004

"The repercussions will start when people go home to their congregations, when rectors meet parishioners at the church door, when people start to say, 'I'm out of here.'" THE REV. DAVID C. ANDERSON, president of the American Anglican Council, criticizing the confirmation of the Rev. V. Gene Robinson as the first openly gay bishop in the Episcopal Church and the worldwide Anglican Communion

"The heat is still on, but luckily the death rate is going down because they are getting used to it." MICHEL DELAGNEAU, of Ducs de Bourgogne farms in Burgundy, France, a major chicken producer, where at least 60,000 birds died within a week because of the extreme heat

"From a business perspective, it's great for the NBA." MARK CUBAN, owner of the Dallas Mavericks, on Kobe Bryant's sexual-assault case

Sources: Los Angeles Times; Washington Post; New York Times; Washington Post; Agence France-Presse; AAP