PERSPECTIVES

"We have no excuses."
New York Yankees third baseman Alex Rodriguez, after losing the American League Championship Series to the Boston Red Sox

"I don't know that she's ever had a real job--I mean, since she's been grown up. So her experience and her validation comes from important things, but different things."
Teresa Heinz Kerry, wife of presidential hopeful Sen. John Kerry, on First Lady Laura Bush. She has since apologized for the remark.

"They offered us Tommy Lee; they didn't offer us Snow White."
University of Nebraska chancellor Harvey Perlman, on the school's decision to let NBC film the wild former Motley Crue drummer trying out for the school's band in a reality show set on campus

"Put a smile on and get better."
The text of a card to former president Bill Clinton from student Mai Chia T. Moua of Minneapolis, one of the many he has received since his heart surgery

"The Lord told me it was going to be (a) a disaster, and (b) messy. I warned him about casualties."
Conservative minister Pat Robertson, on counseling President George W. Bush on the war in Iraq

"She was out of the way but she still got shot... This should not happen to any American citizen going to any type of game."
Richard Snelgrove, on his daughter Victoria, who was fatally shot in the eye by Boston police with a "nonlethal" projectile as she celebrated the Red Sox's American League Championship Series victory

"It was about the fuel. It was the broken-down trucks. Unarmored vehicles."
Teresa Hill, of Dothan, Ala., and mother of Spc. Amber McClenny, in an interview on NBC's "Today" show, on why her daughter and other members of an Army reservist company refused a mission to transport supplies in Iraq

"We knew we'd eventually be rescued."
Jeff Peacock, one of the campers who was saved last week from a mountain in Yosemite National Park in California

"Dr. King, Jesus Christ--man, this is a real serious question--Tupac, and I'd say my dad. Although, in a way, any of those three--Dr. King, Jesus and Pac--are kinda like my dad."
Producer and rapper Kanye West, whose debut album, "College Dropout," has sold 2.3 million copies, on his ideal dinner-guest list

"I asked Smith why he would want to throw a pie at Coulter, and he stated that they did not like her, but they were throwing pies at her ideas and not her."
University of Arizona police officer Andrew Valenzuela, in a police report on why he arrested two Tucson men, Phillip Smith and William Wolff, for throwing pies at conservative author Ann Coulter during her speech at the university