Quotables

"I didn't think 500 years had already gone by."

Mike Russell, an alderman in Clarksville, Mo., after his town was flooded only 15 years after 1993's "500-year flood." Some scientists want alternate terms for flood severity after Midwesterners dropped their flood insurance following 500- or 100-year floods.

"They can go hang. They can go and hang a thousand times."

George Charamba, spokesman for Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe, on critics from the West who question the legitimacy of Mugabe's rule. Mugabe was unopposed in a recent runoff election after his opponent, fearing for his safety, fled to the Dutch Embassy.

"I'm too ugly to be president."

Former Sen. Phil Gramm, R-Texas, on his unsuccessful run for president in 1996. The noted spending hawk is now a prominent adviser to John McCain and rumored candidate for Treasury secretary if McCain wins.

"Obviously, I've got concerns."

Texas Gov. Rick Perry on security at the governor's mansion after an undetected arsonist scaled a perimeter wall and threw an object on the mansion's front porch, starting a blaze that badly damaged the building.

"I don't want to sit here and represent that my guy was a choir director. . . . (But) the guys with the badges are the crooks."

Bob Hammerle, attorney for Bobby D. Johnson of Indianapolis, after police officers who arrested Johnson were themselves arrested for stealing cash and marijuana from alleged drug dealers. Marion County prosecutors say they will have to dismiss more than two dozen cases investigated by the arrested cops.

"Blasphemous"

Anglican archbishop Henry Luke Orombi characterizing a "marriage" that took place in one of London's oldest state churches, carried out last month between two male priests in defiance of the Bishop of London. The ceremony took place on the eve of an unprecedented gathering in Jerusalem of worldwide conservative Anglicans who oppose liberal teaching on homosexuality.