"The Chinese share one wish-making the Beijing Olympics a great success, enabling people to enjoy themselves at the Games and carrying forward the Olympic spirit."

Chinese President Hu Jintao, in a joint interview on August 1 with journalists from 25 news organizations across the world

"China is a nation in transition, with a great future, tremendous potential and some challenges. I believe history will view the 2008 Olympics as a significant milestone in China's remarkable transformation."

International Olympic Committee President Jacques Rogge, at the opening ceremony of the 120th session of the world body on August 4

"We are in a desperate race against time in pursuit of prevention that works."

Stephen Lewis, former UN special envoy to AIDS in Africa, speaking to the International AIDS Conference in Mexico City on August 5 against the background that new infections of the lethal HIV virus is running at an average of 7,500 a day

"We've now finally touched it and tasted it. From my standpoint, it tastes very fine."

William V. Boynton, a professor at the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory at the University of Arizona, speaking at a news conference on July 31 where scientists announced that NASA's Phoenix Mars lander had tested Martian water for the first time

"Until the end of my life, I can hope that the historical material collected by me and presented to my readers enters the consciousness and memory of my fellow countrymen."

Nobel Prize-winning Russian writer Alexander Solzhenitsyn, in a video message to a lavish ceremony at the Kremlin last June, where he was awarded the State Prize, Russia's highest honor, for his devotion to the "fatherland." Solzhenitsyn died on August 3 at 89

"I must say it is a matter of life and death."

Former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic, telling the UN war crimes court on July 31 that he was gravely concerned about his life because the United States might be seeking to "liquidate" him. The reason he gave was that he had a deal of immunity with the United States before withdrawing from public life in 1996