Verbatim

‘There goes billions of dollars, just burning.’ HU JING, one of hundreds of onlookers who watched Beijing’s Mandarin Oriental hotel burn after an illegal fireworks display

‘Eluana did not die a natural death. She was killed!’ SILVIO BERLUSCONI, Italian Prime Minister, reacting to the removal of Eluana Englaro’s feeding tube. The 38-year-old woman had been on life support for 17 years

‘Don’t give me the wine-and-dine baloney, young lady.’ ARLEN SPECTER, Republican Senator, reprimanding radio host Laura Ingraham for suggesting that he supported the stimulus package because he attended a White House cocktail hour

‘GM is not a career anymore.’ TOM SUARTO, a retired autoworker whose son will lose his factory job next month. Since 1912, four generations of Suarto’s family have worked for General Motors

‘We were nothing more than window dressing.’ HAZEL EDNEY, an African-American reporter, on not getting called on despite being seated in the front row of President Barack Obama’s first prime-time press conference

‘We can no longer save our compatriot. We are going to try to punish his killers.’ RADEK SIKORSKI, Polish Foreign Minister, after the Taliban released a video of the beheading of a Polish geologist in Pakistan. It was the first such killing of a Western citizen there since the 2002 murder of Daniel Pearl

‘Politics can’t be any dirtier of a job than the one I am already in.’ STORMY DANIELS, porn-film star, on running for Louisiana’s U.S. Senate seat held by David Vitter

Back & Forth:

Secrecy

‘The Justice Department will ensure the state-secrets privilege is not invoked to hide from the American people information that they have a right to know.’ MATT MILLER, spokesman for the DOJ, on its decision to continue George W. Bush’s policy of dismissing lawsuits that could endanger national security

‘This is not change. This is definitely more of the same.’ ACLU executive director ANTHONY D. ROMERO, accusing President Barack Obama of reneging on his campaign promises to make government more transparent

Copyright

‘We hope for an amicable solution.’ PAUL COLFORD, Associated Press director of media relations, after the AP declared that it owns the copyright–and deserves credit and compensation–for the image used by graphic artist Shepard Fairey in his iconic portrait of Barack Obama

‘Fairey did not do anything wrong. He should not have to put up with misguided threats from the AP.’ JULIE A. AHRENS, an attorney for Fairey, announcing a countersuit that argues his use of the original photograph constitutes “transformative use,” which is protected under copyright law

LEXICON

Fat tail n.– In finance, the often underestimated probability of catastrophes like market crashes and terrorist attacks

USAGE: “‘But what about the fat tail?’ This is another way of asking ‘How come all you geniuses didn’t realize the risk you were running?'” –New York Times Magazine, Feb. 8, 2009

For daily sound bites, visit time.com/quotes

Sources: Washington Post; Times of London; Huffington Post; Chicago Tribune; Fox News; CNN; New York Times