Quotables

‘Sandy is pretty furious at Atlantic City. She must have lost a bet or something.’

Thomas Foley, chief of emergency services for Atlantic City, N.J., after flood waters overwhelmed the city 10 hours before Hurricane Sandy even made landfall on Oct. 29.

‘I believe myself to be innocent before God and men.’

Bernardo De Bernardinis, one of six Italian scientists and an ex-government official convicted of manslaughter for providing “inaccurate, incomplete and contradictory” information about tremors that led up to a massive earthquake on April 6, 2009. The scientists, according to prosecutors, were “too reassuring” prior to the 6.3 magnitude earthquake that killed 309 people in L’Aquila. If an appeal fails, the scientists will face six years in prison.

‘It’s very difficult to look at churches being blown up and say this is tit-for-tat. One side is doing the killing, and one side is doing the dying.’

Emmanuel Ogebe of the Christian Association of Nigerian-Americans disputing media reports of Christian retaliation to radical Muslim attacks in Nigeria.

‘$2.7 million’

The cost for booking half the rooms at the JW Marriott for the 2013 presidential inauguration. The four-night inaugural package at the Washington, D.C., hotel includes 300 rooms, eight suites, access to the parade route, $800,000 in food and beverages, and a nightly keepsake.

‘It’s insensitive to say my son is not very optimal—he is also very dead. I’ve not been “optimal” since he died.’

Pat Smith, mother of slain American diplomat Sean Smith who died in the terrorist attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi. Smith was responding to President Obama’s remark to Jon Stewart on Comedy Central that “if four Americans get killed, it’s not optimal” during a discussion about the attack.