QUOTES.

"I don't know if he knows anything or not. He wasn't talking to me."

"I thought, `Isn't that quaint? That's so charming.'"

Dallas City Council member Laura Miller, on the first time she heard a rooster crow in her neighborhood. The constant crowing soon ruffled her feathers and those of her neighbors. Miller sponsored an ordinance that makes it an offense to have a live rooster within city limits.

"I had no idea that the town would need a permit from the town to take down a tree on town property."

Greenfield, Massachusetts, Police Chief David McCarthy, puzzling over protocol. McCarthy had a tree that was blocking drivers' view removed from police station property. After the deed was done and he found out he was required to get permission to fell the tree, McCarthy slapped himself with a $100 fine. State Trooper Jack Stchur of Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania, on a reticent parrot subpoenaed as evidence. A burglar took the parrot, Cash, along with other loot from a home. In the patrol car, Stchur asked Cash if he knew who the culprit was. The bird shook his head. When asked if he was fibbing, Cash bowed his head.

"The court committed reversible error by allowing the jury to observe [the defendant's] ears."

Judge Kermit Lipez, writing for the U.S. First Circuit Court of Appeals and reversing the conviction of a drug defendant. Prosecutors offered no evidence proving the defendant was the right man, and the sole witness cited the alleged criminal's "protruding ears." The only problem was the defendant's ears were covered throughout trial by headphones used for Spanish translation. The First Circuit faulted the district court for granting the jury's request to see the ears after the close of evidence.

"I think, maybe, we've lost the art of burning candles."

George Pappas Sr., president of LumiLite Candle Co. in Norwich, Ohio. Candle manufacturers recently came under fire when Cathy Flanders of Plano, Texas, sued Gap, Inc., claiming that candles it manufactured produced excessive soot and fumes and damaged her home. Gap insists Flanders misused the candles, and Pappas seems to agree.

"It's like baking a cake ... although I've never baked a cake."

Bo McDaniel of Granville, West Virginia, explaining how he and his business partner, an attorney in Morgantown, West Virginia, will perfect the moonshine they've been licensed to distill. West Virginia issued its first-ever license to distill clear corn whiskey in April.