"Quite alarmed."
Associate Dean of Students Paul Johnston, on the reaction of church officials who learned they had been assigned a toll-free telephone number affixed to condom machines at Colby.

"I don't know how to explain how we survived. The first year we cut all the trees in the city down for firewood. Later we burned furniture, carpets, old clothes."
Izet Smajovic, a Bosnian Muslim who survived the siege of Sarajevo before emigrating to Waterville, addressing Raffael Scheck's history class on Yugoslavia: Emergence, History and Dissolution.

"We have higher standards for fiction than reality.
That's why fiction is considered art and reality is just a mess."
Associate Professor James Finney Boylan (English) recipient of the Senior Class Charles W. Bassett Teaching Award, in a Spotlight Lecture.

"I'll never get through my own library. But I hope you'll understand how satisfying and wonderful
it'll be to die trying."
Charlie Bassett (English and American studies), referring to his love for books in his commencement address at the University of South Dakota.

"We all have a little bit of Indiana Jones in us and we want to connect with the ancient world."
Kerill O'Neill, Taylor Assistant Professor of Classics, commenting on a call for adding an archaeology professor to the Classics Department.

"I was afraid I would be bought by a quad of guys to clean their bathroom or something."
Ali Ghaffari '02, after taking part in a fund raiser that auctioned volunteers' services to other students.

"I had been brainwashed. I had been raised on Tarzan movies.
…'Wow…Tarzan does not run Africa. Damn.'"
Bobby Seale, co-founder and national chairman of the Black Panther Party for Self Defense, in a lecture at Colby in which he recalled his reaction to learning the true history of Africa.

"We have no problem trashing the church-and-state issue of editorial integrity and shopping and merchandising and commerce, because we believe today's generation wants us to do that."
Clifford Sharples '86, CEO of Garden.com and publisher of Garden Escape magazine, in a lecture at Colby.

"I saw many people die in the prison, and their last thoughts were not of their wife but of their country. Their one wish if they survived was to see that Tibet was free."
Palden Gyatso, Tibetan monk who spent 33 years in a Tibetan prison, speaking at Colby.