* “We had some serious differences in the past. But it has become much more confrontational, at the worst possible moment. We need to stand together as defenders of the liberal order.”–Marietje Schaake, vice chairman of the European Parliament’s delegation for relations with the United States.
* “We do not take domestic America politics into account, and we want that to be reciprocated … I say this to Donald Trump and the French president says it too: Leave our nation be.”–French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian, in response to a Trump tweet.
* “I believe it will be said that no occupant of the Oval Office was more courageous, more principled and more honorable than George Herbert Walker Bush.”–Former Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney.
* “We did not have a common value system. I think (Trump) grew tired of me being the guy every day who told him that ‘you can’t do that.'”–Former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson.
* “I don’t think (Trump’s) capable of sustained focus. I don’t think he understands the system. I don’t think the Congress is on his side. I don’t think his own agencies support him.”–Fox News host Tucker Carlson.
* “Running America isn’t like running a family business. It has to be done by setting broad policies and sticking to them, not by browbeating a few people whenever you see a bad headline.”–Paul Krugman, New York Times.
* “The bigger pardon question may come down the road as the next president has to determine whether to pardon Donald Trump.”–Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff, the incoming chairman of the House Intelligence committee.
* “This just confirmed what I thought all along: This all leads up to the crown prince.”–Sen. Richard C. Shelby, R-Ala., after emerging from a closed-door briefing by CIA Director Gina Haspel on the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi Arabian consulate in Istanbul.
* “Divisiveness sells. Comity doesn’t.”–James Baker, former chief of staff, secretary of state and Treasury secretary during the Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations, on the upshot of today’s media.
* “I say there’s no more 24-hour news cycle; it’s down to about two hours.”–NBC Nightly News anchor Lester Holt.
* “I have argued for some time that it’s very difficult to craft a business model for non-Trump media these days. I do think a lot of people on the right think of conservative media as a safe space for them. There’s a great deal of resentment for conservatives who are going to push back against Trump and Trumpism.”–Charlie Sykes, conservative radio host and contributing editor at The Weekly Standard, which has been getting its share of pushback from Trumpsters.
* “Humor is the universal solvent against the abrasive elements of life.”–Former Wyoming Republican Sen. Alan Simpson.
* “It’s the absentee ballots that are most ripe for fraud. People have been saying that for years.”–Jason Roberts, professor of political science at the University of North Carolina.
* “Through thick and thin, up and down, one thing about elections in America has never changed: You cannot win them without non-political people. It is the undecided masses who decide elections.”–Jesse Kelly, the Federalist.
* “As this country becomes blacker, browner, gayer, younger, more Hispanic and more Muslim, it is increasingly the case that the GOP cannot win if all voters vote. It cannot win, in other words, without cheating.”–Leonard Pitts, Miami Herald.
* “The party is over in crypto world. … During Thanksgiving week alone, bitcoin shed more than two-thirds of its value.”–Jill Schlesinger, CBS News business analyst.
* “Print may be best for lingering over words or ideas, but audiobooks add literacy to moments where there would otherwise be none.”–Daniel T. Willingham, psychology professor at the University of Virginia.
* “We see this as a historic shift that will allow us now to go after significant new customers.”–Port Tampa Bay CEO Paul Anderson, in announcing that Cosco Shipping Lines of China plans to begin sending a container ship a week to Tampa early next year.
* “Arming a teacher with a gun crosses the line of civility and common sense.”–Hillsborough County School Board member Lynn Gray.