Verbatim
'There's always going to be a spore on a grassy knoll.' VAHID MAJIDI, head of the FBI's weapons-of-mass-destruction division, on conspiracy theories about the case against Bruce Ivins, the now dead military scientist accused of mailing anthrax that killed five people in 2001
'Mickey Mouse isn't there to protect those people.' WAYNE LAPIERRE, chief executive of the National Rifle Association, blasting Disney for refusing to allow employees to keep concealed weapons in their cars at work as permitted by Florida law
'A pillar of the regime has been hit.' KHADIJA MOHSEN-FINAN, scholar at the French think tank IFRI, after an explosives-rigged car rammed a police academy in Algeria, killing at least 43 people. The next day, 11 people were killed in similar attacks
'Finally the literary stylite has fallen from his pedestal and is as much a sinner as you or I.' ULRICH WEINZIERL, Franz Kafka scholar, on the revelation that the writer subscribed to highbrow pornography
'You're going to eat your words.' RICK DYER, a Georgia man who offers Bigfoot tours, addressing skeptics after he and colleague Matthew Whitton said they had photos and DNA of a Bigfoot corpse--later found to be a monkey suit and opossum DNA
'For the Indian, the forest is his mother, his life, his present and future.' MARGARITA MBYWANGI, vowing to protect forests and land rights, after becoming the first indigenous person appointed Paraguay's Minister of Indigenous Affairs
'Is there some frequent-flyer program?' BILL MURRAY, actor, before jumping from an airplane at 13,500 ft. (4,100 m) to kick off the 50th Chicago Air and Water Show
Back & Forth:
Space Race
'Iran is ready to launch satellites of friendly Islamic countries into space.' REZA TAGHIPOUR, head of Iran's space agency, after the nation declared that it had test-fired a new rocket capable of carrying a satellite into orbit
'[Iran] deliberately exaggerates its air and space successes.' YITZHAK BEN, head of Israel's space agency, saying Tehran is bluffing in order to dissuade Israel or the U.S. from attacking its nuclear sites
Voting
'It is slow, insecure and opens up room for error.' KEVIN KENNEDY, director of Wisconsin's elections board, complaining about the state's outdated voting machines; in 1,500 polling places, officials have to use calculators to add up machine tallies
'We simply are not going to sacrifice the integrity of the certification process for expediency.' ROSEMARY RODRIGUEZ, chairwoman of the U.S. Election Assistance Commission, saying flaws in thousands of voting machines nationwide won't be fixed by November's election because of a scheduling backlog
North Korea
'The United States has not kept its promise to remove us from the list of states sponsoring terrorism.' KOREAN CENTRAL NEWS AGENCY, North Korea's state media outlet, accusing the U.S. of failing to honor a six-nation denuclearization deal
'We need action for action.' ROBERT WOOD, State Department spokesman, saying North Korea must first fulfill its end of the bargain by adopting measures to verify its nuclear inventory
For daily sound bites, visit time.com/quotes
Sources: New York Times; Wall Street Journal; AP; Guardian; New York Times; BBC; AP