Ogden, Patrick, Patrick, Miller, and Schumer

Senate Finance Chairman Steve Ogden, R-Bryan, on the prospect a big one-time jump in state spending next year: "We're exceeding the spending cap so we can cut your property taxes. I think everybody will vote for that."

State Sen.-elect Dan Patrick, R-Houston, quoted in the Houston Chronicle: "I'm hearing some Republicans say we've got to move to the middle. If we do that, the Republican Party will be destroyed in Texas."

Patrick, asked by the Austin American-Statesman about rumors among lobbyists and political folk that he wants to run for governor four years from now: "That was never on my radar until they started talking about it."

Dallas Mayor Laura Miller, quoted in The Wall Street Journal on Southern Methodist University's bid for a George W. Bush presidential library and her preference that it go to the University of Dallas, in Irving: "The proposed SMU site is cramped, and the campus, though pretty, is already a traffic nightmare, even without a heavily visited presidential library in its midst."

U.S. Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-New York, on Sen.-elect James Webb, D-Virginia, in The Washington Post: "He's not a typical politician. He really has deep convictions."