Notes and quotes from the nation's news pages

Human scum and a bloodsucker ... we decided not to deal with him or consider him as an official of the U.S. administration.

North Korean spokesman, cited by Pyongyang's Korean Central News Agency, on John R. Bolton, undersecretary of state for arms control, hours before North Korea agreed to a multilateral dialogue with South Korea, China, Japan, Russia and the United States.

Cowboy boots are fine for a certain kind of saucy backyard barbecue. But wearing them as often as he does, with those big belt buckles in the shape of Texas, it seems like he's trying too hard to prove his masculinity.

A gay political reporter on President Bush, quoted by Maureen Dowd in the Monday New York Times.

Dowd commented on the ongoing political debate about gay rights in the U.S.

He's a psychopathic killer so we don't know when he's going to resign or what he's going to do.

Jacques Klein, U.N. special representative to Liberia, on Liberian President Charles Taylor on the World This Weekend program. Taylor is to step down as President August 11, and it is suspected he will find refuge in Nigeria as a means to escape an indictment filed by the U.N. court of Sierra Leone.

The Holy Ghost was working through me on this film, and I was just directing traffic. I hope the film has the power to evangelise.

Mel Gibson on his new movie, "The Passion," in the London Guardian. The film depicts the last 12 hours of Jesus Christ's life and has received mixed reactions from Catholic and Jewish scholars.

I can't think of a more important TV show costume.

Joseph Maddalena, the chief executive of the auction firm Profiles In History, on the sale of the original Superman costume for $129,800 at a Los Angeles auction last Thursday.