The most memorable quotes in the Times Free Press from Nov. 24-30:
“You can’t just quit. You can’t just stop when you don’t feel like it. I’m not going to let my family down.”
— Jaime Simonds, 18, on her determination to balance a full-time job and college classes with caring for her family
“The No. 1 reason this is happening this year is the competitiveness in the retail industry with online shopping, and the other choices people have to buy. … We’re not telling people that they have to go shopping; we’re just inviting them to have that choice.”
— Barb Faucette, vice president of mall owner and management company CBL & Associates, on opening stores on Thanksgiving Day
“I think it is despicable that the holidays have degraded into the ‘shopping season.’ …There is no respect for family or the holidays anymore.”
— Nurse Kristen Maxwell on her opposition to the shopping blitz on Thanksgiving Day
“These are two people that were murdered. Two people. Two murders.”
— Bradley County Criminal Court Judge Amy Reedy on the two life sentences, to be served consecutively, she gave to 27-year-old Tasha Bates, who was found guilty in August of two counts of first-degree murder in the overheating deaths of her two boys, Leland, 5, and River, 3