* “The best thing we as militaries can do is to … get back to peace, so that diplomacy can work.”–Adm. Samuel Locklear, commander of U.S. forces in the Pacific.
* “Please help us to do something before our tragedy becomes your tragedy.”–Francine Wheeler, mother of a child murdered in Newtown.
* “A pretty shameful day for Washington.”–President Barack Obama after the Senate rejected a measure to require more gun buyers to go through background checks.
* “Why doesn’t 90 percent of America equal 60 senators?”–Maureen Dowd, New York Times.
* “Americans refuse to be terrorized. Ultimately, that’s what we’ll remember from this week.”–President Barack Obama in the aftermath of the Boston bombings.
* “I fear we have permanently entered the Age of the Retraction. … The rush to be first has so thoroughly swallowed up the principle of being right and first that it seems a little egg on the face is now deemed worth the risk.”–Judy Muller, former network news correspondent and current journalism instructor at the University of Southern California, on the early–and often erroneous–media coverage of the Boston Marathon bombings.
* “We have a media culture that emphasizes opinion in order to fill the 24-hour news cycle and occupy the infinite reaches of broadband. But when it mattered most in Boston, only actual journalism mattered.”–Michael Gerson, Washington Post.
* “This will not be the last oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico or elsewhere. This is a ticking time bomb.”–Steve Murawski, a biologist with the University of South Florida St. Petersburg.
* “There’s going to be merit pay as a part of funding for teachers.”–Florida House Speaker Will Weatherford.
* “You have no idea how comfortable it is to be a Democrat.”–Former Republican Gov. Charlie Crist.
* “He’s the only person that can raise the money to compete, and that is just a fact of life. Unless Bill Nelson decided to get into the race.”–Attorney John Morgan’s assessment of Charlie Crist’s gubernatorial chances against incumbent Rick Scott.
* “The U.S. tax code is 74,000 pages long. This is seven times longer than the Bible and double the length of Encyclopedia Britannica.”–U.S. Rep. Dennis Ross, R-Lakeland.
* “If we’re using a computer for (FCAT) testing, then we’re not using it for instruction. We don’t have enough to do both.”–Peggy Jones, Pasco County director of accountability, research and measurement.
* “We could market the Tampa Bay region as the aquarium capital of the world.”–David Yates, Clearwater Marine Aquarium CEO.
* “If we are truly going to be an international destination, then we’ve got to go get the business.”–Mayor Bob Buckhorn on traveling to Germany and Switzerland with a delegation of business recruiters.
* “When you make your bets, you make them for the long-term. I happen to think Tampa is a great bet for the long-term.”–Bob Abberger, managing director of Trammell Crow Co, the developer of the delayed SouthGate office tower in downtown Tampa.
* “Tampa is an excellent environment for businesses to grow and thrive, and it has proven to be the right choice for us.”–Eric Miller, head of Depository Trust & Clearing Corp. Tampa, which is adding 255 positions at its New Tampa campus.