* “The tragedy of the Cuban Revolution is this: It endowed its citizens with abundant human capital, while it sadly left them bereft of the tools or incentives to gainfully employ their acquired talents.”–Richard E. Feinberg, former senior director of the National Security Council’s Office of Inter-American affairs under President Bill Clinton and author of “Open For Business: Building the New Cuban Economy.”
* “There can be no debate. … It is over.”–Vice President Joe Biden, as Congress certified Donald Trump’s presidential win over the objections of a handful of House Democrats.
* “I spent months never believing that he would be elected president. I sincerely hope that the office makes the man.”–Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill.
* “The capital has never been more anxious about its own government. The town is suffering pre-traumatic stress disorder. This guy is really going to be president.”–Maureen Dowd, New York Times.
* “The transition team’s collusion with Senate Republicans to jam through these cabinet nominees before they’ve been thoroughly vetted is unprecedented.”–Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y.
* “I can’t imagine a bigger contrast between the economy that President Obama inherited and the economy that President Obama is about to hand off.”–Labor Secretary Thomas Perez.
* “Factory jobs are important to the people who have them ,but they are no panacea for the economy and can’t justify policies–protectionism, self-serving jawboning–that are undesirable on other grounds. … Patriotism may be good politics; it is not always good economics.”–Robert Samuelson, Washington Post.
* “Black people understand what we mean when we say ‘black movie,’ but Hollywood cannot put that label on it. … If you keep labeling it a ‘black movie,’ white people are gonna be like, ‘Well, that’s a black movie.’ It’s a bad label.”–Ted Melfi, director of “Hidden Figures.”
* “With smoking, we started moving toward a norm where tobacco use was no longer cool–that was a cultural shift that we made in part through media and community-driven campaigns. That’s what we have to do with nutrition and physical activity, too.”–Vivek Murthy, Surgeon General of the Public Health Service.
* “While we are pleased with the strong performance of our highly developed online business … we continue to experience declining traffic in our stores where the majority of our business is still transacted.”–Terry J. Lundgren, chairman and CEO of Macy’s Inc., after announcing that Macy’s would close 68 stores and eliminate more than 10,000 jobs.
* “It’s a disgrace that taxpayer dollars are used to hire lobbyists when we elect people to represent them. The state doesn’t do it, and neither should the locals.”–Florida House Speaker Richard Corcoran, R-Land O’Lakes.
* “The world is watching and we are performing.”–Mayor Bob Buckhorn.
* “Tampa Bay has the strongest employment growth in all of the state of Florida and has one of the hottest markets for residential construction in Florida and places that people want to live.”–Jason Robertson, vice president of development of Miami-based American Land Ventures.
* “There’s still a lot to do with implementation and what that means. I think we’re all just sort of anxiously awaiting the ‘What now?'”–Monica Russell, spokeswoman for Surterra, the Tampa-based cannabis grower and dispensary.
* “It’s not shot in Tampa but it’s not far. … We were as close as the Georgia tax rebate away.”–Ben Affleck, director and star of “Live By Night,” based on Ybor City rum-running but filmed in Brunswick, Ga.