Verbatim: Jul. 17, 2006

“We have no intention of drowning in the Gaza swamp.” –AMIR PERETZ, Israeli Defense Minister, saying his country does not plan to fully reoccupy Gaza. Israel seized three small sectors of the territory last week as a buffer against Palestinian missile fire, which has showered southern Israel since hostilities escalated two weeks ago following the kidnapping of an Israeli soldier by Palestinian militants

“What you have witnessed now is only the beginning of a string of attacks that will continue and become stronger.” –SHEHZAD TANWEER, one of the four suicide bombers who struck London on July 7, 2005, on a video recorded before the assault and aired by al-Jazeera last week on the first anniversary of the attack

“We are not afraid to die in the fight.” –EMILIO SERRANO, member of Mexican presidential candidate Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s leftist party, pledging protests after conservative Felipe Calderón apparently won last week’s elections by just 0.58%–243,934 votes out of 41.8 million cast

“When I was a kid looking at people [who were] 60, I said, ‘Man, there goes an ancient person.'” –GEORGE W. BUSH, U.S. President, who turned 60 last week

“I wanted to stroke him like a cat, and it came out in this gesture.” –VLADIMIR PUTIN, Russian President, on why he stopped to kiss a little boy’s stomach while walking through the Kremlin

“Betting on baseball gets boring.” –KEN MOORE, graphic designer in Quincy, Mass., and one of thousands of gamblers to have bet in foreign online casinos on how many hurricanes will hit the U.S. in 2006. Online betting is illegal in the U.S.

For more daily sound bites, visit time.com/quotes

Sources: BBC News; the Times (London); Bloomberg; CNN; AFP; AP