* “I’ve been covering and visiting North Korea since the 1980s, and this may be the moment of greatest risk and opportunity. It is maddening that the U.S. is handling the moment so chaotically.”–Nicholas Kristof, New York Times.
* “Everybody plays games. You know that.”–Donald Trump on whether the summit with Kim Jong-un is back on schedule.
* “The art of diplomacy is a lot more difficult than the art of the deal.”–Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J.
* “We will hold those doing prohibited business in Iran to account. I’ve spent a great deal of time with our allies in my first three weeks. I know they may decide to keep their old nuclear deal going with Iran. That is certainly their decision to make. They know where we stand.”–Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.
* “No government official–including the president–is above the law.”–Federal Judge Naomi Buchwald, in ruling that President Donald Trump’s effort to silence his critics by blocking Twitter followers is a violation of the First Amendment.
* “There are arguments aplenty on the right these days, but the vast majority of them are arguments over a specific personality–Donald Trump–not a body of ideas.”–Jonah Goldberg, National Review.
* “Robert Mueller is no doubt exquisitely aware of the political seasons and the political clock. … But he is also cognizant of the imperative for thoroughness. History hinges on his performance.”–Ruth Marcus, Washington Post.
* “If you can’t win respect, then try to destroy the basis by which respect is granted by flattening the moral landscape. Because Trump is incapable of appreciating or emulating (Sen. John McCain’s) sense of duty and honor, Trump resorts to the petulance of the bitter and the envious.”–Charles J. Sykes, Weekly Standard.
* “Red states rarely turn blue without help from swing voters. But running as a doctrinaire progressive with heavy-handed appeals to minorities, the young and unmarried women is a perilous strategy at best.”–Republican strategist and commentator Karl Rove, on the Georgia Democratic gubernatorial nomination of Stacey Abrams, the first black woman to win a major party’s nomination for governor in any state.
* “Gun manufacturers don’t want to talk about dead kids in schools; they’re framing the issue as one about individual rights and freedom. The gun lobby took that right out of big tobacco’s playbook to give cover to legislators who took their money.”–Petula Dvorak, Washington Post.
* “I’m not Bernie Sanders and I’m not Elizabeth Warren. On the flip side, I’m not Ted Cruz and I’m not Rand Paul.”–Sen. Bill Nelson.
* “Goodbye Tom Wolfe, may you be awed, thrilled and over the moon this day by what you find now, a new and unreported world.”–Peggy Noonan, Wall Street Journal.
* “I lost interest in movies at exactly the same time movies lost interest in me.”–Steve Martin.
* “Chance favors only the prepared mind.”–Louis Pasteur.
* “House Republicans blocked my bipartisan amendment to ban oil drilling off the coast of Florida … meaning they will not allow a vote at all.” Rep. Kathy Castor, D-Tampa.
* “I know Ron and I are very grateful to have the support of the Trump family. Don Jr. and other members of the Trump family draw great crowds.”–Florida Republican Congressman Matt Gaetz, on the upcoming political rally at The Villages featuring Gaetz, gubernatorial candidate Ron DeSantis and Donald Trump Jr.
* “What I would say to Rick Scott and Pam Bondi, is ‘If you decide to appeal this verdict, I think Rick Scott will lose the U.S. Senate race on this issue alone.'”–John Morgan, on the decision by a Leon County circuit court judge that the state’s ban on smoking medical marijuana is unconstitutional.
* “Ybor City kind of has it all from our perspective. It’s close to the urban core. Lots to celebrate. Tons of soul.”–Mario Tricoci, CEO of the Aparium Hotel Group, which will manage a new $50-million, 176-room, boutique hotel planned for the 1400 block of Ybor’s E Seventh Avenue.
* “I tell them to go down there and spend a few hours with him and listen to what he has to say, and how he’s done it.”–NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman, on advising prospective franchise owners to meet with Jeff Vinik and learn how he has made the Lightning a national success story.
* “From my understanding, it’s questionable if a team or the NFL could legally fine a player for protesting.”–Ali Marpet, Bucs offensive lineman and the team’s NFL Players Association representative.
* “I wouldn’t call us a theme park. We are a zoo.”–John Muller, COO of the recently rebranded ZooTampa.