Quotables

‘That’s the best Christian real estate in the country. It’s now gone forever.’

Doug Birdsall, former president of the American Bible Society, on the group’s sale of its 12-story Manhattan headquarters as part of its move to Philadelphia. A number of ministries rented space at the building, and it was a regular meeting space for Christians and Christian groups in high-cost New York.

‘For as long as I live, I will not let this suffering be normal.’

U.S. aid worker Kayla Mueller, killed, according to Islamic militants, when Jordanian air strikes struck the building in which they kept her prisoner in Syria. Mueller, who volunteered for medical relief work, was kidnapped in 2013 while working from a hospital in Aleppo.

‘We all just assumed he was lying, basically.’

Washington Post political writer Aaron Blake, on muted press reaction to what he called “an American president’s top adviser admitting that the president lied to the public about his true position on an issue of significant currency.” David Axelrod in his new book Believer: My Forty Years in Politics wrote that President Obama for political reasons lied when he said during his 2008 campaign that he opposed same-sex marriage.

‘We sit there, stone-faced, the sober judges, but we’re not—at least I wasn’t—100 percent sober.’

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg on falling asleep during President Obama’s State of the Union address. She explained that she had dined with other justices and had a bit of wine with her meal before the address.

‘Whether government bureaucrats deem your coverage too generous or not generous enough, Obamacare has a tax for you.’

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnelI, R-Ky., on the Senate floor after Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Burwell acknowledged many Obamacare enrollees who received subsidies will have to pay back at least part of the money they received.