"This place [Seattle] must be progressive and good if this [Western Bridge] exists here." —Jessica Powers, curator, on why she decided to stay in Seattle rather than take an internship in Baltimore a few years ago. She told this story at a private dinner last week to talk about what's going to happen now that Western Bridge is closing in 2012. People cried (including Powers).

"We were just very impressed." —Deputy Mayor Darryl Smith, on Vincent Kitch, the mayor's choice for new director of Seattle's Office of Arts & Cultural Affairs. Kitch has spent most of his 20-year career in government; he's set to start April 4.

"Ohhhh! Ohhhh! Ohhhh!" —Fake orgasms by protesters at Sotheby's last week, who raised a banner that read "Orgy of the Rich" when a Warhol was introduced. This followed widespread student protests in London over the government's proposal to take away all federal funding to art colleges. The Warhol sold for 3.1 million pounds, higher than its high estimate.

"OFFENSIVE LANGUAGE AND HOMOSEXUAL CONTENT." —How Vashon Island building owner Louise Rice and her daughter Wendy described the art they tore down in the Two Wall Gallery in their building. It's the second time in two months that art at this gallery has been physically removed by offended islanders.

"I don't mind giving art away, but this feels too much like vandalism (maybe drunken vandalism). I do hope that the people who took them, they will at least enjoy them." —Artist Klara Glosova, whose highly lovable ceramic and resin popsicles wearing sweaters were stolen from the Living Room, the Capitol Hill bar where they were the featured art display.

"Is it really so outrageous to think of cutting a bloated military budget, or taxing the smooth-talking cabal of bankers who got us into this crisis in the first place, rather than letting ourselves be pitted against each other fighting for their scraps? The conservative art-slashers have their bigger agenda. Why shouldn't we push ours back?" —Artinfo.com's Ben Davis, from his column "Bread, Roses, and the Republican Anti-Art Agenda."

"It was very isolating. I remember I used to go down to the corner store and get this Vietnamese kid to close the store and come see what I'd made just so someone would. I'd drag the mail carrier in to look." —Cris Bruch on the loneliness of being an artist in Seattle in 1986, when he moved here from Madison, Wisconsin.