Ultimately, the question was whether the voters’ decision was to be given any meaning or whether we would go along with business as usual. I think the courts said . . . we have to give meaning to the new language of the statute.

-- John Reinstein, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts

The logic escapes me. . . . In my mind, the odor of marijuana is clearly enough evidence of illegal activity to justify ordering those inside to exit the vehicle.

-- Boston Police Commissioner Edward F. Davis

I think it’s disgusting. My clients are all too aware that they are on the bottom of the pecking order, but to get food that is unfit for schoolchildren to consume should make it unfit for any human being to consume.

-- Leslie Walker, executive director of Prisoners' Legal Service

It’s been a good way to serve good food very frugally in terms of the budget. It’s not rancid food. It’s not spoiled food.

-- Richard McCarthy, spokesman for the Hampden County Sheriff’s Department

To put it simply, a tyrant wanted a crimson-tinged report that he was running a democracy, and for a price, a Harvard expert obliged in spite of abundant evidence to the contrary.

Harry Lewis, a Harvard professor who has criticized financial ties between a senior academic and Libyan dictator Moammar Khadafy.

We are finding ourselves increasingly involved as individuals and as an institution with the world around us. ... These interactions require us all to be sensitive and self-reflective about our engagements.

Harvard President Drew Faust

Unfortunately, I have lived in Worcester all my life, and it is an ugly, bombed-out, filthy, old, exhausted New England mill town that will probably never rise again.

-- Scott Wolfe, responding to Brian McGrory's column, "Wowed in Worcester"

The city does have excellent restaurants, world-class colleges, and a surging biotech industry. ... Maybe the next time McGrory is in Worcester, he could actually try a meal or explore the city's other virtues.

-- Rory Harrity

We were just sitting there, drinking coffee, thinking how great life was.

-- Peter Sullivan, one of the two men who survived when a Lynn parking garage roof collapsed on their car

We looked up. We saw the roof coming down.

-- Cesar Jimenez, the other survivor

All my stuff is gone. All my kids' stuff is gone. And it's sad. I'm calling all these agencies and no one is helping.

-- Carmen Tirado, whose Scituate home flooded during Sunday's nor'easter

There are a lot of pieces to the puzzle. We'll need cooperation from the federal, private, and state agencies to solve the problems, and they are very large.

-- US Senator Scott Brown, who surveyed storm damage in the town on Thursday

I'm new and different. But I realize that deep inside me there is still that ugliness, and I know that I have to deal with that and control that, and I'm doing a real good job of it.

-- Dominic Cinelli, who allegedly killed a Woburn police officer on Sunday, asking the Massachusetts Parole Board for parole in 2008

I don't know how any member of the Parole Board justifies that. He shouldn't have been out, and now there's another person dead.

-- Laurie Myers, president of Community Voices, a crime victim advocacy group

Contributing to the program would present a burden to a college of our size and would have a direct impact on the services we provide to our students, including financial aid and student support services.

-- Roy Schifilliti, a Wheelock College vice president, commenting on Boston's request for more PILOT payments.

Long term, what’s really going to be important is that everybody thinks they are getting the same fair shake. What we heard was that institutions really weren’t aware of what arrangements their compatriot institutions had, so that brought a natural reluctance for anybody to step forward.

-- Stephen W. Kidder, PILOT task force chairman

I don’t encourage anyone to put themselves in danger that way, but they did do a good job and potentially saved his life.

-- Rindge, N.H., Fire Chief Richard Donovan, commenting on the rescue of a man who had fallen through the ice by lakeside resident Peter W. Sherwin and another man

Nobody drowns in Pete's territory.

-- Peter W. Sherwin

Tough choices are going to have to be made.

-- Administration and Finance Secretary Jay Gonzalez, speaking this morning at a State House hearing

Many places are struggling to recover. In Boston, we're recovering from the struggle.

-- Mayor Thomas M. Menino, speaking this morning at a Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce event