Perspectives

" All of a sudden, virginity is important in France. "
An anonymous 23-year-old student who is undergoing an operation to have her hymen restored after a recent court ruling allowed a marriage to be annulled because the bride was not a virgin. The controversial surgery is increasingly popular among the country's Muslim population.

"No one is earning money to eat anymore: not the truckers, not the fishermen, nobody, and someone has to find a solution."
Jaime Diaz, president of Spain's National Road Transport Confederation, on the first day of a truckdriver's strike that blocked the northern border in order to protest crippling fuel prices

"I don't see any physical resemblance at all, though when I was younger, I was pretty driven."
Calum Murray, a Scottish cousin of Donald Trump, commenting on the real-estate mogul's first visit to his mother's birthplace—a modest croft on the Isle of Lewis—during a tour to promote "the world's greatest golf course" on the sand dunes of Aberdeenshire

" Bush is not even popular in the role of the enemy anymore. "
German newspaper Der Tagesspiegel, commenting on the lack of protests surrounding the American president's latest visit to the country

" I noticed they were writing in all different directions, and straightaway I thought, ' They ' re not taking notes like we thought they were ' . "
Australian defense attorney Robyn Hakelis, on a jury that was discharged from a major drug trial for playing sudoku, the popular numbers game, in court while pretending to take notes on evidence