* “My neighbor is the largest consumer of drugs, and everyone wants to sell him drugs through my window.” — Mexican President Felipe Calderon.
* “Our goal is not to punish the banks, but to protect the larger economy and the American people.” — President Barack Obama.
* “They elected him because he was an extraordinarily appealing candidate, and the previous administration had thoroughly discredited themselves, and John McCain looked like more of the same.” — Jonathan Alter, author of “The Promise: President Obama, Year One,” in explaining that the election of Barack Obama was not really a seminal signal by the American electorate that they were finally getting “serious.”
* “We need hungry regulators. Give them a financial incentive, and they’ll have all the motivation they need to ferret out fraud, expose the perpetrators and make the Street safe for our children.” — Caroline Baum, Bloomberg News columnist and author of “Just What I Said.”
* “We say we want clean energy, but let’s not kid ourselves: The policies we have in place in the United States today are still incredibly pro-carbon.” — Lew Hay, chairman and CEO of FPL Group (parent company of Florida Power & Light) and NextEra Energy Resources.
* “Non-emergency care delivered in the ER costs almost five times more than in a doctor’s office or clinic.” — Jennifer Brokaw, San Francisco-based emergency physician.
* “There is a real danger that what we are exposing kids to is inertia. Kids kept inside are becoming fatter, sadder and sometimes diabetic. What’s worse, perhaps, is that they are missing out on the very gift we wish to give them: a happy childhood.” — “Free-Range Kids” author Lenore Skenazy.
* “What better place for people to retool than a community college? It needs to play a leading role in job training, in a better quality of life for the community, in helping the community become a positive part of the global economy.” — Newly named Hillsborough Community College President Ken Atwater.
* “This money will go from us to us.” — Republican political consultant Adam Goodman on how a one-cent tax hike for transit upgrades is an investment “in ourselves.”
* “In certain parts of the county, such as some areas of Brandon and Valrico, there seems to be antipathy to all things Tampa.” — Scott Paine, University of Tampa political science professor.