Posted by Fred R. Shapiro, Editor of The Yale Book of Quotations:

Below are the quotations that I have selected as most notable of the year 2006.  It should be noted  that these are not necessarily eloquent or admirable quotations (most of them are not eloquent or admirable), rather they have been picked because they are important or they are particularly revealing of the spirit of our times.

Some of the most famous quotes of the past year have been omitted because they are simply too coarse to be memorialized, such as Michael Richards on hecklers, Mel Gibson on Jews, George Allen on “macacas,” Arnold Schwarzenegger on Latinos, Charles Rangel on Mississippi, George W. Bush on Hezbollah, and Samuel L. Jackson on snakes on planes.

NOTABLE QUOTES OF 2006

“America is addicted to oil.”
-George W. Bush, State of the Union Address, Jan. 31, 2006

“I’m the decider, and I decide what is best. And what’s best is for Don Rumsfeld to remain as the Secretary of Defense.”
-George W. Bush, Remarks to press, Apr. 17, 2006

“I take full responsibility for the federal government’s response [to Hurricane Katrina].”
-George W. Bush, Remarks at Warren Easton High School, New Orleans, La., Aug. 29, 2006

“Yesterday, the devil came here, right here, right here, and it smells of sulfur still today. The president of the United States, the gentleman to whom I refer as the devil, came here talking as if he owned the world, truly as the owner of the world.”
-Hugo Chavez, President of Venezuela, Address to United Nations, Sept. 20, 2006

“The joke is not on Kazakhstan.  I think the joke is on people who can believe that the Kazakhstan that I describe can exist.”
-Sacha Baron Cohen, Quoted in Chicago Tribune, Nov. 16, 2006

“The greatest thing about this man [George W. Bush] is he’s steady.  You know where he stands. He believes the same thing Wednesday that he believed on Monday, no matter what happened Tuesday.”
-Stephen Colbert, Remarks at White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner, Washington, D.C., Apr. 29, 2006

“These broads [widows of World Trade Center victims] are millionaires, lionized on TV and in articles about them, reveling in their status as celebrities and stalked by grief-arrazies. I have never seen people enjoying their husbands’ death so much.”
-Ann Coulter, Godless: The Church of Liberalism (2006)

“If you ain’t first, you’re last.”
-Will Ferrell, playing Ricky Bobby, Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby (motion picture) (2006)

“We lied morning, noon and night [about the economy in order to win the election].”
-Ferenc Gyurcsany, Prime Minister of Hungary, Quoted in Independent (London), Sept. 20, 2006

“When I was a kid I had no idea I lived in a mansion. Then I went to a friend’s house and I was like – ‘Oh.’ ”
-Paris Hilton, Quoted in Times (London), Apr. 26, 2006

“The situation in Iraq is grave and deteriorating.”
-Iraq Study Group Report (2006)

“Education, if you make the most of it, and you study hard, and you do your homework, and you make an effort to be smart, you can do well. If you don’t, you get stuck in Iraq.”
-John Kerry, Remarks at Pasadena City College, Pasadena, Cal., Oct. 30, 2006

“This is Michael J. Fox. He`s got Parkinson`s disease. And in this commercial, he is   exaggerating the effects of the disease. He is moving all around and shaking, and it`s purely an act.”
-Rush Limbaugh, “Rush Limbaugh Show” radio show, Oct. 23, 2006