Michelle Obama:

In the end, the greatest blessings of all are the ones that don't cost a thing -- the time that we spend with our loved ones, the freedoms we enjoy as Americans, and the joy we feel from reaching out to those in need.

Dana Priest and William Arkin:

Memphis Police Department Director Larry Godwin has produced record numbers of arrests using all this new analysis and technology. "Some of them we can talk about. Some of them we can't."

The vast majority of fusion centers across the country have transformed themselves into analytical hubs for all crimes and are using federal grants, handed out in the name of homeland security, to combat everyday offenses.

Richard Blumenthal:

I am disappointed by Google's failure to comply with my information demands.

Robert Lane Greene:

Google doesn't want to sell you your exobrain. It wants the contents.

Scott Thurm:

Smartphone users are all but powerless to limit the tracking.

James Gleick:

It infiltrates us; we are not its masters.

Ian Ayres:

In the laboratory, you don't let the rats design the experiments.

Laura Carstensen, professor of psychology at Stanford University:

Young people will go to cocktail parties because they might meet somebody who will be useful to them in the future, even though nobody I know actually likes going to cocktail parties.

Andrew Exum:

Military officers are familiar with the concept of the "SPENDEX," where all ammunition not used in the course of the year is fired -- sometimes wildly -- at the end of a fiscal year, so ammunition allotted for the next year is not cut. The same principle applies to aid -- but instead of wasting bullets, the organizations waste dollars. Rather than face the prospect of reduced development funds in the future, development and military officers are under pressure to spend every penny they are given. But doing so simply feeds the Afghanistan's distorted economy, which only benefits the insurgency and corrupt Afghan officials. We must first fix the perverse incentives in our own system in order to fix those in Afghanistan.

David S. Cloud and Christi Parsons:

Being on track is not the same as being confident in the outcome.

Brian Hayes:

We could celebrate diversity. We could let a thousand flowers bloom. What actually happens, more often, is that we launch a crusade to convert the infidels -- or else exterminate them.

Hamid Karzai:

If I had to choose sides today, I'd choose the Taliban.

Christopher Hitchens:

It's enough to make a cat laugh.