Quotes.

"It's good we don't have to go to school. But it's bad because we don't have a school."

--CRAIG TYNDALL, a 7th-grader in Carbon Hill, Alabama, after his town was devastated by a tornado (The New York Times, Nov. 13).

"I am afraid. But I will continue."

--RAIHANA a 9-year-old girl in Afghanistan whose school was attacked by fundamentalists who object to girls' education (The New York Times, Oct. 31).

"We keep arresting people and seizing drugs, but they just keep coming. We're in a boat with a big hole. We can keep bailing, but the hole's still there."

--JAMES D. CHADWICK, police chief in Dalton, Georgia, which has become a hotspot for drug traffickers (The New York Times, Nov. 16).

"When people start writing about New York, they teed to go get a thesaurus and find all the synonyms for dysfunctional."

--NEW YORK STATE SENATOR JAMES J. LACK, about the chronic gridlock in the state's legislature (The New York Times, Oct. 20).

"Conflict is not inevitable, but disarmament is."

--BRITISH PRIME MINISTER TONY BLAIR, about the United Nations Security Council's resolution demanding that Iraq turn over weapons of mass destruction (Newsweek, Nov. 18).

"He wasn't the thug type. That's why it's sad. He had nothing to do with that whole gangsta thing."

--DARYL...