NOTABLE QUOTABLES

“My mother’s cooking was made out of love. You could taste it in every

dish.”

-- Margarita Avila, 76, on remembering her mother cooking Mexican

cuisine in their Guanajuato home. Avila and her husband, Salvador, just

celebrated the 35 year anniversary of their family business -- Avila’s El

Ranchito Mexican Restaurants.

“It was a great place to write a novel about book burning, in the

library basement,”

-- Ray Bradbury, author, on writing “Fahrenheit 451” at UCLA’s library

on a typewriter that took dimes every half-hour. Bradbury appears Tuesday

at the Newport Beach Central Library.

“It just shows that kids have big hearts no matter how much they have

or don’t have. And it’s up to us educators to keep that alive. They gave

more than we asked for.”

-- Julie McCormick, principal of Pomona Elementary, on the children at

her school raising $600 in a week for the children of Afghanistan.

“We always try to tell kids that they’re in somebody else’s living

room. When we’re in someone’s living room, how do we behave? We don’t

move the furniture, we don’t move the people.”

-- Jeannette Merrilees, a docent for the State Parks Department, on

what she tells people during the monthly tide pool tours she conducts at

Crystal Cove. Newport Beach is working on plans to build an artificial

tide pool at Shellmaker Island to try and save the ones in the wild.

“We’re all a bunch of volunteers, we don’t get paid, and some

outsiders that probably aren’t informed about the process are in an

uproar and hammering on volunteers. It’s a total lack of respect.”

-- Brett Hemphill, owner of Hemphill’s Rugs & Carpets in Costa Mesa,

on why he resigned Wednesday as chairman of the Newport Harbor Christmas

Boat Parade after receiving e-mails and phone calls and a threat from

residents unhappy with organizers’ plans to change the 2002 parade route.

“We want to do our part, but we also want to have our police officers

on the street and fix those potholes. It’s a balancing act.”-- Bill

Morris, public services director for Costa Mesa, on why the city was last

agency of nearly a dozen to ante up for a 2-year-old study that could be

used to rewrite standards for four substances flowing into the Back Bay

via urban runoff.

“You hear about New Yorkers being rude. But when we were out there,

people were walking up to us, shaking our hand. Some even told us they

know where Costa Mesa is and thanked us for our support.”

-- Jim Ellis, Costa Mesa fire chief, on spending a week in New York

earlier this month to deliver a check for $7,500 collected by Costa Mesa

city employees to benefit the families of firefighters who died in the

Sept. 11 World Trade Center attack. Ellis went to New York with his son,

Kevin.