"There are only two options to deal with the debt limit: Congress can pay its bills or they can fail to act and put the nation into default."—White House press secretary Jay Carney on congressional Republicans asking for significant spending cuts in exchange for raising the borrowing limit.

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"A tough fight to push a bill through a bitterly divided House of Representatives: Winning it required the president to make a lot of unsavory deals that had nothing to do with the big issue. ... I wouldn't know anything about that."—Former President Bill Clinton in introducing the film "Lincoln" at the Golden Globe awards.

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"What does this say? I beat Meryl."—Golden Globe winner Jennifer Lawrence joking as she looked at best-actress award, referring to a line from "First Wives Club" about her fellow nominee Meryl Streep.