Quotables

‘I guess I’ll shake your hand but I have only one thing to say to you: You need to get out of Ukraine.’

Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper when Russian President Vladimir Putin approached him for a handshake at a G20 summit in Australia. Putin, who told Harper his troops aren’t in Ukraine, received other icy receptions and left the economic summit early.

‘No one in this room will be alive at the end of this war.’

Commander, U.S. Southern Command Gen. John Kelly speaking to the Halifax International Security Forum on the war with Islamic State.

‘I may not be perfect, but I am perfect for Washington.’

D.C. Mayor Marion Barry on his election to a third term in 1986. Barry, who died at 78 on Nov. 23, served four terms as mayor and later became a D.C. Council member, even after a 1990 cocaine bust sent him to federal prison for six months. Despite a sordid reputation he was lionized in death: “He has left a strong legacy for so many young people to follow,” said Washington Mayor-elect Muriel Bowser.

‘We must reclaim and retake feminism from our fellow idiotic women.’

Somali-born author and former Dutch lawmaker Ayan Hirsi Ali, who renounced Islam and its treatment of women, on Western feminism’s focus on trivial matters instead of the brutal treatment of women in Islamic countries.

‘It used to be called Black Friday, then it became Thursday, now it’s a week long. … Maybe we should just call it November.’

Walmart U.S. chief merchant Duncan Mac Naughton. As major retailers extended Black Friday shopping over multiple days, shoppers camped out at Walmart and other big-box stores as early as Nov. 11 for megadeals.

‘We’re at the age where, if you want to call us heroes, we’re not going to argue anymore, [but] we know better.

CIA operative John Downey speaking in 2013. Downey, imprisoned in China from 1952 to 1973, was released after years of solitary confinement, eventually became a judge in Connecticut, and died Nov. 17 at age 84.