The year's best quotables
from the Chicago Tribune ...
The year's best quotables
December 26, 2007
'Don't Tase me, bro!'
--Andrew Meyer, a University of Florida student, shocked with a Taser by campus police after persistently questioning Sen. John Kerry at a university forum
'Dumb as hell.'
--Assessment heard on White House audiotapes by then-President Richard Nixon of former Sen. Fred Thompson
'I think we're setting the bar too low when we say, "Look, isn't it great that we haven't had a statewide elected official go to jail recently?"'
--Bobby Jindal, Louisiana's new governor, who said his first priority is to change the state's reputation for corruption
'Don't you think I'm humiliated?'
--Don Imus, apologizing on the Rev. Al Sharpton's radio show for calling the Rugters (sic) University women's basketball team "nappy-headed hos"
'I'm Prince Tomohito the alcoholic.'
--Member of the Japanese royal family who broke a taboo by speaking about his drinking problem
'I blame myself. What mother wouldn't?'
--Lynne Spears, on her daughter Britney's trouble
' St. Elizabeth is too one-dimensional and it's really not me. ... I have to start cussing or something. ... People are just too darned nice to me since I've been sick.'
--Elizabeth Edwards, the wife of presidential candidate John Edwards, on how people on the campaign trail are responding to her cancer diagnosis
'Put your big-girl panties on.'
--Education Secretary Margaret Spellings' advice to deputy White House press secretary Dana Perino, who replaced Tony Snow as White House press secretary
'While technologically and financially you are giants, morally you are pygmies.'
--House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Tom Lantos (D-Calif.) to Yahoo Inc.'s chief executive Jerry Yang and the firm's top lawyer, regarding the company's collaboration with China in the jailing of a Chinese journalist
'I'm not 100 percent sure why anyone would want their porn in HD.'
--Stormy Daniels, a porn director and actress, on the high-definition format of porn DVDs
'Hopefully, young people who look up to people like Paris will learn from this.'
--Kathy Hilton, on her daughter's 45-day jail sentence, which was reduced to 23 days
'Think about it. Rudy Giuliani. There's--there's only three things he mentions in a sentence: a noun, a verb and 9/11. I mean there's nothing else.'
--Democratic presidential contender Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware
'I think a lot of people owe a lot of apologies to a lot of people.'
--North Carolina Atty. Gen. Roy Cooper, who dropped all the charges against the three athletes in the Duke University lacrosse rape case, saying the students were railroaded by then-Durham County District Atty. Mike Nifong
'Um, no.'
--Former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, on whether he misses President Bush
'That old, eh, that old Beach Boys song, "Bomb Iran." Bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, anyway, ah ...'
--Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), briefly singing the chorus of "Barbara Ann," a song made popular by the Beach Boys, in a joke about Iran
'As always, I rely on the jury system.'
--O.J. Simpson, facing 12 criminal charges in Nevada, including kidnapping and armed robbery
'I bet I can stay up longer than they can.'
--Republican Sen. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, on Democrats who staged an all-night Senate debate on the Iraq war
' When I first heard about it I spent about a half-hour going around my house crying.'
--Oprah Winfrey, on learning of allegations that a dorm matron at her South African academy for disadvantaged girls had abused students
'I'm a textualist. I'm an originalist. I'm not a nut.'
--U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, on his strict adherence to the words of the U.S. Constitution
'There is a harsh reality here: When it comes to food, "Made in China" is now a warning label in the United States.'
--Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), on potentially deadly products reaching U.S. shores from China
