* “The only thing new in this world is the history that you don’t know.”–President Harry Truman.
* “The boom, not the slump, is the right time for austerity.”–John Maynard Keynes.
* “It’s not that this proposal is regarded as great or is loved in any way, but it’s regarded as better than going over the ‘cliff.'”–Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y.
* “It’s good to have hope, but if we’re going to be realistic, there’s little chance for Middle East emergence of what we in the West call democracy.”–Walter Williams, Creators Syndicate.
* “Soprano state.”–What American officials have nicknamed North Korea for its trafficking in state-sponsored organized crime such as counterfeiting, drugs and insurance fraud.
* “In a world without a serious military rival, the U.S. becomes the world’s emergency call center.”–Fareed Zakaria, Time magazine.
* “We will continue to oppose a ban on semiautomatic weapons that are used for perfectly legitimate purposes. We’re talking about sporting arms.”–David Keene, NRA president.
* “To me, essential freedoms have been those that the government takes away from you in prison. To the NRA, freedom is the ability to own three assault rifles, four Glocks and unlimited ammo.”–Randy Schultz, Palm Beach Post.
* “It’s a terrible idea. It’s a horrible, terrible, no-good, rotten idea.”–Carol Lear, chief lawyer for the Utah Office of Education, commenting on the free gun training offered to teachers by Utah’s leading gun lobby.
* “The problem with the Republican Party is the quality of the people who vote in their primaries and caucuses. … It can’t win with a base that is at war with math, physics, human biology, economics and common-sense gun laws all at the same time.”–Thomas L. Friedman, New York Times.
* “The party right now is a holding company that’s devoid of a soul.”–Former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman, who ran for the Republican presidential nomination in 2012.
* “You just try to tell a good story that captures a moment in time, and hopefully that stands the test of time.”–Kathryn Bigelow, director of “The Hurt Locker” and “Zero Dark Thirty.”
* “The cost curve is extremely steep, and unless you’re in a power conference, the revenue is flat.”–Scott Cowen, president of Tulane University, on the reality of any school moving up to the top level, the Football Bowl Subdivision.
* “I believe the state collects taxes to educate children, not to fund schools.”–Newly appointed Florida Education Commissioner Tony Bennett.
* “My job is not to listen to any one group as the sole proprietor of information.”–New Florida Speaker of the House Will Weatherford.
* “There is a built-in critical mass in downtown Tampa that if you could walk to a stadium you would have a lot more people in the seats. You would energize downtown in ways we can’t even imagine.”–Mayor Bob Buckhorn.
* “Part of the problem is that the road speeds are much too fast for sharing lanes.”–Jim Shirk, chairman of the Hillsborough County Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Committee.