Quotables

‘I gotta pay our bills.’

Former President Bill Clinton on charging as much as $750,000 per speech since leaving office—totaling more than $100 million between 2001 and 2013, according to The Washington Post.

‘If the Lord called me now, I’m ready.’

Pastor Kenneth Green, 56, of the Greater Saint Mary Baptist Church in New Orleans, shortly before collapsing and dying while delivering his May 3 sermon.

‘As a high-speed rail advocate, I am steamed.’

Joseph Vranich, former president of the High Speed Rail Association on optimistic projections of profitability with low ticket prices for California’s bullet train from Los Angeles to San Francisco, which is projected to be operational by 2028. “I have not seen a single number that has come out of the California high-speed rail organization that is credible,” said Vranich.

‘We do not have more atheists in America. We have more honest atheists in America.’

Russell Moore, president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, on a Pew study showing that the number of Americans who identify as Christians has reached an all-time low, and is falling. “Secularization in America,” he argued, “means that we have fewer incognito atheists” and fewer churchgoing unbelievers, a trend that is “good news for the church.”

‘We are talking about Islamic fanatical, Christianophobic terrorism, and we have to tag it as such.’

Roman Catholic Cardinal Timothy Dolan, speaking at a May 7 gathering in New York about Islamic State terrorism.