Quotables

“I do not regret my decision.”

President JOE BIDEN, telling reporters on Aug. 10 he did not regret pulling U.S. troops out of Afghanistan, despite a subsequent Taliban resurgence there. “We spent over a trillion dollars over 20 years. We trained and equipped with modern equipment over 300,000 Afghan forces. … They’ve got to fight for themselves.”

“The military is weaponizing COVID.”

YANGHEE LEE, a founding member of the Special Advisory Council for Myanmar, who said the country’s military leadership is barring civilians who support the pro-democracy movement from receiving treatment at military hospitals. Despite a surge in COVID-19 deaths in the country, the regime has also arrested democracy-supporting doctors.

“No, thank you.”

Team USA weightlifter SARAH ROBLES, who took the bronze medal in the female weightlifting +87-kilogram event at the Tokyo Olympics, when asked by a reporter to comment on the event’s first-ever inclusion of a biological male, transgender competitor Laurel Hubbard. The other two medalists also declined to comment.

“What I have in Christ is far greater than what I have or don’t have in life. I pray my journey may be a clear depiction of submission and obedience to God.”

SYDNEY MCLAUGHLIN, an American hurdler who won two gold medals and broke her own world record in the 400-meter hurdles at the Tokyo Olympics, writing about her faith in an Aug. 5 Instagram post.

“They’re demonizing and vilifying you, and then they want to put you in a unit where you’re under an even bigger microscope.”

DARYL TURNER, head of a union representing police officers in Portland, Ore., opining to The Wall Street Journal why only four officers had volunteered to join the city’s newly reconstituted gun violence reduction team, briefly disbanded during last year’s race protests. New team member qualifications include the “ability to identify and dismantle institutional and systemic racism in the bureau’s responses to gun violence.”