Overheard

Beyond inhuman

"Whoever has done it is not a human and does not have a human soul."

-- Mian Iftikhar Hussain, a provincial information minister, on the Taliban's shooting of Pakistani education activist, 14-year-old Malala Yousafzai.

SOS

"It was a little bit scary... It felt like we were flying just above the water. We had a pretty good view, and they were tipping the plane side to side to maximize the view."

-- Jill Barber, Canadian singer/songwriter, was on an aircraft that was rerouted on its way to Australia to take part in locating a sinking yacht. Passengers cheered when they were told the yacht had been rescued.

Call a spade a spade

"'Cyberbullying' is an imprecise and easily manipulated term. A child making a negative comment about another child via email would fall afoul of many schools' anti-cyberbullying policies. Using the same term to describe the crimes of a predatory child pornographer, which resulted in a girl's death, is reductive and dangerous."

-- Jesse Brown, Canadian expert on technology

Must use our inside voice

"You know my theory that women won't vote for men who yell. I don't know what they're going to make of two potential presidents spending the night yelping, 'My turn! My turn!' "

-- Gail Collins, American commentator, weighs in on the presidential debate.

The grass is greener...

"This is not a major milestone. Winning some football games would be a major milestone!"

-- Strummer78, commenter on the Winnipeg Free Press website, reacts to officials calling the installation of turf at the new Bombers stadium "a major milestone."

Seeking the little ladies

"One got the sense of Mitt Romney coming from a place where women were generally in the other room, waiting to be invited in only when the moment -- or the visibility of the job -- called for it."

-- Amy Davidson, New Yorker blogger, ponders Romney's "binders full of women" comment.

Another round please

"There's a difference between what's called drinking a lot in America and drinking a lot back in Ireland or in London. You have two glasses of wine over here, and you're an alcoholic."

-- Martin McDonagh, British film director on drinking in America.

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition October 20, 2012 J2