Roberts, Cochran, Dorcy, Garcia, and Lin

U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts, in a decision striking a ban on corporation- and union-sponsored political "issue" ads in the final weeks of campaigns: "Discussion of issues cannot be suppressed simply because the issues may also be pertinent in an election. Where the First Amendment is implicated, the tie goes to the speaker, not the censor."

Judge Cathy Cochran of the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, dissenting from a decision that says the state's conspiracy statutes apply to some felonies, but not those in the state's Election Code: "Are some felonies more felonious than other felonies? More deserving of being deterred and punished before their actual commission? Or are felonies defined in the Penal Code especially heinous "felonies-on-steroids," while their brethren defined outside the Penal Code are puny, half-pint felonies unworthy of being the subject of the crime of conspiracy? I do not think so."

Jim Dorcy, a board member of the National Association of Retired Border Patrol officers, in a Houston Chronicle story about plans to hire 6,000 new agents by 2009: ''We're in unanimous agreement that it can't be done. They can't round them up, train them and get them on the line in that amount of time."

Texas Department of Transportation spokeswoman Gabriela Garcia, quoted in a Fort Worth Star-Telegram story on millions of dollars paid to losing highway bidders: "It's not a consolation prize. We're not just paying for paper. We take their proposals and, even though they're an unsuccessful proposer, we use pieces of it and incorporate those ideas into the final product."

Jeff Yu-Kuang Lin, a millionaire software programmer busted for opening a brothel in Richmond, quoted in the Houston Chronicle: "Money wasn't the motivation. I just wanted to experience something different."