Quotables

"I've been told I hate myself."

TIMOTHY F. JOHNSON, chairman of the Frederick Douglass Foundation, on reaction to his and other African-Americans' support for the Tea Party movement.

"Free and fair as possible."

U.S. envoy to Sudan Scott Gration's description of upcoming elections in Sudan. Gration agreed with a go-ahead of the elections despite massive evidence of fraud and to the dismay of human-rights groups. "Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir should be plastering 'We Love Gration' posters all over the capital," said actress and activist Mia Farrow. "No one in Sudan believes the elections will be anything approaching free or fair."

"If people don't agree with us or don't believe us on issues, that's their prerogative. But just because we're a bank does not mean we're wrong."

James Dimon, chairman and chief executive of J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., on his company's opposition to legislation that would, among other requirements, force his company to pay into a fund to finance any future bailouts of other financial firms-even though his firm didn't require a bailout in 2008.

"I have all I want."

Reclusive Russian genius Grigory Perelman, on the possibility that he may turn down a $1 million prize from the Clay Mathematics Institute in Cambridge, Mass., for solving the Poincaré Conjecture, a problem that has stumped mathematicians for a century.

"It is a walking prison."

Belgian lawmaker DANIEL BACQUELAINE on burqas worn by Muslim women. The Belgian Parliament is considering a law to ban face-covering veils, and France is set to vote on a burqa ban next month.

"I think Michael Steele's problem isn't the race card; it's the credit card."

White House Press Secretary ROBERT GIBBS on Republican Party chairman Michael Steele's statement, in the wake of a scandal involving the misspending of party funds by Steele's subordinates, on having a narrow margin of error because he is black.