“Painful as it is, we have to adjust.’’ -- Governor DEVAL PATRICK on the possibility of up to 2,000 state jobs being eliminated if concessions aren’t made to close an estimated $600 million budget deficit
“The last time we saw 10,000, we were going the wrong way.’’ -- DOREEN MOGAVERO, president of the brokerage firm Mogavero, Lee & Company, on the milestone level Wall Street reached, while on the trading floor of the New York Stock Exchange Wednesday
“I’m not a racist. I just don’t believe in mixing the races that way. I have piles and piles of black friends. They come to my home. I marry them. They use my bathroom. I treat them like everyone else.’’ -- Justice of the Peace KEITH BARDWELL of Tangipahoa Parish in New Orleans, on refusing to give out a marriage license to an interracial couple
“No.’’ -- Secretary of State HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON, on whether she will ever run for president again, in an interview with NBC’s Ann Curry
“One of the boys yelled to me that his brother was way up in the air.’’ -- BOB LICKO, a neighbor of the Heene family, whose 6-year-old son, Falcon, was thought to have been aboard an airborne homemade helium balloon but was later found in his parents’ attic
“The question is: Does the market need this type of profession based on where our economy is headed?’’ -- STEPHEN TOCCO, a trustee of the UMass board, on the state school potentially taking over the private Southern New England School of Law in North Dartmouth
“My vote today is my vote today. It doesn’t forecast what my vote will be tomorrow.’’ -- Senator OLYMPIA SNOWE of Maine, on her lone vote from the Republican aisle, approving the health care bill in the Senate Finance Committee
“I just can’t imagine turning on your faucet and manure coming out. We’ve got to fix this, and we’ve got to fix it quickly.’’ -- Representative PHIL HARE of Illinois, on a Wisconsin woman’s testimony before the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure in which the Environmental Protection Agency announced that it was time to reexamine enforcement of the Clean Water Act 
