Quotable & notable

National Catholic Reporter, August 8, 2008

"The people are waiting in the dark, but that has become normal. '"

--The Chaldean Catholic archbishop of Kirkurk, Iraq, Louis Sako, who said Iraqi Christians are forced to live with absolutely no idea of what the future holds

"'Most of us spend [more of] our time doing burials than any other thing."

--John Emile Otekat, a member of Uganda's parliament who is backing a proposal to ban weekday funerals because of the vast number of hours taken away from work. Otekat blamed the country's high death rate on the prevalence of HIV/AIDS and malaria in Uganda.

"When I was asked if the shooter would go to hell, I replied that he must have been living in his own private hell for years. '"

--The Rev, William Sinkford, president of the Unitarian Universalist Association, after visiting the Unitarian church in Knoxville, Tenn., that was the site of a shooting rampage July 27 that killed two and wounded eight

"In world affairs today, the rule should not be the argument of force but the force of argument."

--Mustafa Ceric, grand mufti of Bosnia, who participated in an interfaith conference of Christian and Muslim scholars at Yale Divinity School last month