"It's not a shooting war, but it is a war."

California Supreme Court justice Janice Rogers Brown on the bitter divisions in the United States. "These are perilous times for people of faith," she told a Connecticut legal group last week, "not in the sense that we are going to lose our lives, but in the sense that it will cost you something if you are a person of faith who stands up for what you believe in and says those things out loud." Senate Democrats have threatened to filibuster her nomination to a federal appellate court.

"We tend to project our own human aggression into outer space."

Director Steven Spielberg on the reason science-fiction movies often portray aliens as violent. Mr. Spielberg's War of the Worlds is due in theaters on June 29.

"I want to be the only redneck trying to catch this thing."

Southwest Missouri animal control officer Jeff McRoy on why he would not disclose where a 60- to 80-pound panther had been spotted on the loose.

"I'm already very Italian."

Pope Benedict XVI on being late last week for an audience with a group of fellow Germans.

"History is repeating."

Travis Witteveen, of the computer security firm F-Secure, on cell phones increasingly becoming targets for viruses, spam, and phishing scams.