Quotables

"Wouldn't you like to have a people whose first obligation is to love?"

Former President GEORGE W. BUSH at Southeastern University on March 12, recalling a conversation he had with the Chinese president, telling him that Christianity is good for his country.

"I don't think you can defeat the IED as a weapon system. It is too easy to use."

U.S. Army Lt. Gen. Michael Oates, director of the military's Joint IED Defeat Organization, on the failure of high-tech systems to detect improvised explosive devices (right). Most IEDs that are found prior to explosion are discovered by soldiers who notice disturbances in the landscape.

"To me, piracy is something adventurous. It makes you think about Johnny Depp."

AGNETE HAALAND, president of the International Federation of Actors, arguing that Hollywood and the recording industry should stop using the term pirates to describe those who illegally download songs and video clips and instead emphasize the social and economic costs of such activity.

"You start coming to the truth of who you really are and that can be very ugly."

TIGER WOODS on his view of himself in the wake of the sex scandal that shook his marriage and career last year. Woods will begin his return to professional golf at the Masters on April 8.

"Even though this is horrific, we will continue to provide the best services that we can."

Rick Hanson of the Willamette Education Service District in Oregon, on the need to lay off a third of the teachers at two youth correctional facilities-due to a fewer-than-anticipated number of troubled youths enrolling at the facilities.

"Wait . . . your mom is still alive. It was your dad [who] passed. God bless her soul. I gotta get this straight."

Vice President Joe Biden, at a March 17 St. Patrick's Day celebration, after honoring the memory of Irish Prime Minister Brian Cowen's mother, who is alive.