* “It’s smoke and mirrors. It’s bogus. And it’s all too familiar. Every time we get close to passing reform, the insurance companies produce these phony studies as a prescription and say, ‘Take one of these, and call us in a decade.’ Well, not this time.” –President Barack Obama.
* “The oil-drilling matter is not on the Senate agenda for the coming session,” –Florida Senate President Jeff Atwater, R-North Palm Beach.
* “People have said we could expand there within 10 years. I think that’s realistic.” – NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell on the prospects of the league expanding into Europe.
* “When’s it going to turn around? It eventually will. I wish it would turn around with me.” –FSU’s Bobby Bowden.
* “I really think the (January Iraqi) elections will be a point of departure by which we look at an assessment of true drawdown and really start moving our numbers from, let’s say, somewhere between 120,000 and 110,000 by the election, and then getting at that 50,000 by August 2010.” –Brig. Gen. Stephen Lanza, U.S. military spokesman.
* “All of the known fatalities involving giant snakes are from pet snakes, and usually to the owners.” –Robert Reed, research biologist with the U.S. geological survey.
* “At the end of the day, we have to figure out what the public will support. It does not matter what we support.” –Bob Abberger, developer and member of the Hillsborough County Transportation Task Force, on voters deciding whether to increase the county sales tax by 1 percent for light rail and bus networks next year.
* “It’s a false recovery…It’s a relief rally. Recovery will be lagging, muted and mild.” –University of Central Florida economist Sean Snaith on the economic reality and challenges facing Florida.
* “I’m not a racist. I just don’t believe in mixing the races that way. I have piles and piles of black friends. They come to my home, I marry them, they use my bathroom. I treat them just like everyone else.” –Keith Bardwell, the Louisiana justice of the peace who refused to issue a marriage license to an interracial couple.
* “I woke my wife up and said, ‘Honey, do you love me?’ And she goes, ‘I’ve always loved you.’ I said, ‘I love you, too. Oh, by the way…’” –Dr. William Steele, Orlando dermatologist, on breaking the news to his wife that he had won the Powerball jackpot – worth a lump-sum payment of $101 million.