Verbatim

"Without a firearm, machete or any physical weapon, you caused the death of thousands of innocent civilians." NAVANATHEM PILLAY, presiding judge of a U.N. tribunal that convicted Ferdinand Nahimana of using his Rwanda radio broadcasts to incite the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi minority

"I am certain they will achieve nothing. The people of Russia will not allow it." VLADIMIR PUTIN, Russian President, on a suicide attack on a commuter train that killed at least 42 people and appears to have been the work of Chechen rebels

"Seventy boys and 70 girls were going to be made into superpeople. They were going to be trained and sent out to different parts of the world and bring about a just system." CARMETA ALBARUS, social worker, describing what sniper suspect Lee Malvo told her that he and accomplice John Muhammad were planning to do with the $10 million they had demanded to stop the random shootings

"This document is virtual, but all of us are real, and our heartbeats are real." YOSSI BEILIN, former Israeli Justice Minister, on the proposed Geneva Accord, a detailed plan for peace in the Middle East, spearheaded by him and his Palestinian counterpart, a former Information and Culture Minister, Yasser Abed Rabbo

"He had this sad, lost-puppy-dog look on his face--this unhappy, empty look." SANDRA JOLLY, Florida mother whose 6-year-old was told by his teacher in class that Santa Claus was made up

"A number of questions have been raised about the link between carbon dioxide and climate change, which do not appear convincing." ANDREI N. ILLARIONOV, senior Kremlin official, justifying Russia's expected decision not to ratify the Kyoto protocol to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases

"Gay is when a girl likes another girl." MARCUS MCLAURIN, 7, a Louisiana boy who was scolded and forced to write, "I will never use the word gay in school again," after he told a classmate about his lesbian mother

Sources: AP; CNN; Washington Post; New York Times; Sun-Sentinel; New York Times; AP