* “Europe has more responsibility for its own security, and Germany has to step up to that, particularly considering its new economic power in Europe.”–Constanze Stelzenmuller, senior fellow at the Berlin-based German Marshall Fund.
* “We are not a deadbeat nation.”–President Barack Obama.
* “Ultimately, parties tend to be defined by their most visible personalities.”–Mitch Daniels, former Republican governor of Indiana.
* “House Republicans have just enough real power to raise conservative expectations but not nearly enough to bend a liberal president and a Democratic Senate to their will.”–Ross Douthat, New York Times.
* “The banks will not get this country in trouble; I guarantee it.”–Warren Buffett.
* “As the federal government becomes a health care state, there will have to be a generation of defense cuts that overwhelm anything in recent history.”–David Brooks, New York Times.
* “I’m a hunter. Believe in Second Amendment rights. But you know what? I don’t need an assault weapon to shoot a duck. And I think they ought to be banned, and I think we need to put a ban on the amount of shells you can carry in a magazine, and I think we have to strengthen our background checks.”–Rep. Rick Nolan, D-Minn.
* “Biden did for the president on Capitol Hill what J.F.K. was always too wary to let the experienced L.B.J. do for him.”–Presidential historian Michael Beschloss.
* “Given Obama’s ideology, perhaps it would make more sense for him to swear in (on) Das Kapital.”–Bill Donohue, president of the Catholic League.
* “We need to provide a path out of the shadows for the 11 million undocumented immigrants who live in the United States today–provided that they meet strict conditions.”–Tom Donohue, president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
* “Watching America’s legalization movement with gloom are the Mexican drug cartels, whose vast profits from grass smuggling will wither with the loss of their most lucrative market.”–Carl Hiaasen, Miami Herald.
* “It seems to me to be rather odd and unusual that the governor would take a direct role of this sort in a search for a university president that is traditionally the province of the board of trustees and the faculty.”–John Biro, president of the University of Florida’s faculty union chapter, on Gov. Rick Scott’s active involvement in persuading UF President Bernie Machen to postpone his retirement.
* “I am not real happy.”–U.S. Rep. C.W. Bill Young, R-Indian Shores, commenting on news that MacDill Air Force Base was no longer in the running to land the first of the Air Force’s next-generation air-refueling aircraft.
* “If not for William Reece Smith, legal services to the poor would probably not exist in this country.”–Dick Woltmann, president and CEO of Bay Area Legal Services.
* “I’m excited about having the opportunity to have a dialogue and find out exactly what the Rays’ long-term plans, goals and intentions are. Up until now, it’s been nothing but speculation and what little we read in the paper.”–Hillsborough County Commission Chairman Ken Hagan in confirming that the Rays will talk to his board on Jan. 24.
* “We would like to see people–that is, the general populace–demand that Florida come out of the solar Dark Ages.”–Scott McIntyre, CEO of Solar Energy Management.
* “I want Tampa’s streetcar expanded in both hours and routing. If we’re bringing people downtown to discover what we have, then we will need better transportation.”–Christine Burdick, president of the Tampa Downtown Partnership.
* “The number of residents in downtown/Harbour Island has reached the tipping point where a grocery store makes financial sense.”–Mayor Bob Buckhorn.
* “If I lose this, it’s going to be very disturbing for people who do what we do.”–Bubba the Love Sponge Clem on the defamation law suit brought against him by Todd “MJ” Schnitt.
* “If our South is ever to be what we wish it to be, we will plant a flower of nobler resolve for the South now upon these four small graves that we dug.”–The last line of Eugene Patterson’s most famous column, written for the Atlanta Constitution in 1963 in the aftermath of the Birmingham church bombing that killed four black girls.