* “Science can lift people out of poverty and cure disease. That, in turn, will reduce civil unrest. The key is education in science–particularly mathematics, medicine and engineering.”–Stephen Hawking.
* “The nation faces a nasty dual deficit problem: a painful jobs deficit in the near term and an unsustainable budget deficit over the medium and long term…The best approach is a compromise: Extend the tax cuts for two years and then end them altogether. Ideally only the middle-class tax cuts would be continued for now.”–Peter Orzag, former director of the (Obama) White House Office of Management and Budget.
* “I have no problem with people saying the president is trying to stimulate growth and hiring. Isn’t that what I should be doing?”–President Barack Obama.
* “Presidents and politicians of both parties have promised for years to provide college opportunities for everyone and measure progress by the percentage of students enrolled. But it’s becoming increasingly clear that college doesn’t make sense for everyone.”–Michael Barone, author and senior political analyst for The Washington Examiner.
* “I think every election in America is going to be about Barack Obama. I don’t care if it’s dogcatcher of Kalamazoo or governor of Florida. And that’s good for Republicans, no matter how divisive our primaries were.”–Orange County Republican chairman Lew Oliver.
* “He looks so sincere, so earnest when he’s telling you something 180 degrees from what he said last week. It’s a Rorschach test he has to let the voters project onto him what they want to see.”–University of Florida political scientist Dan Smith on independent U.S. Senate candidate Gov. Charlie Crist.
* “According to the FBI, Florida leads the nation in public corruption. Yet few investigative and prosecutorial resources are directed at overseeing Florida’s biggest unit of government–state government. That is because the Capitol is located in Tallahassee, which has a small state and federal prosecutor presence.”–Dan Gelber, Democratic nominee for Florida attorney general.
* “It’s flattery. They’re scared I am a true constitutional conservative, a.k.a. a libertarian, and Rubio’s not.”–U.S. Senate Libertarian candidate Alex Snitker on pressure to drop out of the race and not strip votes from Republican candidate Marco Rubio.
* “Without modern transit, we will continue to lose ground to more progressive communities and suffer an erosion of our business and employment base.”–Gary Sasso, chairman of the Tampa Bay Partnership and chairman of Moving Hillsborough Forward.
* “I try to be as straight as I can. I’m not trying to mislead anyone, but there are certain things you can’t elaborate on. I understand everyone has a job to do, and I try to cooperate, but I just feel like people don’t need to know everything.”–Tampa Bay Lightning general manager Steve Yzerman.
* “One of our finest citizens. Now the ‘Big Coach’ has called him home. He’s done the work that God wanted him to do.”–Monsignor Laurence Higgins on the late Rev. Abe Brown.