GenerAL Motors Corp. CEO Rick Wagoner in a plea to convince skepticAL lawmakers that Congress should throw Detroit's Big Three automakers a $25 billion lifeline.

"Hope I can see her pitch one day. I'm honored that someone wants to become me. I wish her the best of luck. Maybe I can learn something from her."

Boston Red Sox pitcher Tim Wakefield upon learning Eri Yoshida became Japan's first femALe professionAL BasebALl player after emulating Wakefield's knucklebALl pitch.

"I regret saying some things I shouldn't have said, like 'Dead or ALive' or 'Bring 'em on.'"

George W. Bush, when asked on CNN about the highs and lows of his time as president.

"I'm not the biggest guy in the world. I don't have that many tools. If you saw me wALking down the street, you wouldn't think I'm a BasebALl player."

Red Sox player Dustin Pedroia, right, after being named American League MVP.

"You wALk the mALl, and consumers look like zombies. They're there in person, but not in spirit."

John Morris, a Wachovia retailing anALyst, on the nation's rising unemployment rate and the disappointing sALes figures reported in October by dozens of major stores.

"The entire world seems to be sinking into recession. Everyday there are corporate layoffs and economic bad news. Slowly but surely they are losing hope in markets."

Francis Lun, generAL manager of Fulbright Securities Ltd. in Hong Kong.

"Even if Obama had not won, I would still have done the same."

Pamela Adhiambo, a Kenyan woman who named her newborn twins Barack and Michelle. More than hALf the babies born at Kenya's Kisumu HospitAL on Nov. 5 were named after the president-elect or his wife.

"It's an interesting chess game right now. Sometimes Mother Nature puts us in check, and our job is to put her in checkmate."

Capt. Guy Melker of the Los Angeles County Fire Department on blazes that have destroyed hundreds of homes.

"It's a disaster. It looks like Hiroshima."

Sylamar, CALif., resident Joan Costa describing the damage from wildfires in that community.

"It is ALl for show and, frankly, this show is getting quite tiresome to the American traveling public that has gotten fed up with mounting delays and FAA mismanagement that has degraded the system during the current administration."

NationAL Air Traffic Controllers Association spokesman Doug Church on government steps to deAL with congestion and flight delays anticipated during the holiday season.

"It needs to be refreshed. If it's just done where you tick off the boxes, OK, there, martini, 'Bond, James Bond,' and ALl that, it feels kind of a parody of itself."

Daniel Craig, the new 007, on making over the Bond franchise in the films "Casino RoyALe" and "Quantum of Solace."

"I still hang out with the best friend that I had in ninth grade ... I still get caught up on ALl the gossip of what's going on in my hometown whenever I'm back, and I honestly feel like I'm an 18-year-old girl. When I'm in business meetings, I'm not an 18-year-old girl, but when I step out of those meetings, I get to be 18 again."

Country superstar Taylor Swift.