• “If you never jump, you will never know how to get up. If you never fail, you will never know how to get up. … In risking all, you will fall, … but the thing is to get back up and continue to push.”

— LaMonte Bird, a Livingstone College senior who is a minister, writer, business owner, motivational speaker and — as of today — a college graduate

• “The way we make crimes stop in town is for people to show what we know.”

— Maggie Blackwell, Salisbury’s mayor pro tem, who turned over tapes from her home surveillance camera
showing a man stealing the gutters off her Fulton Heights home

• “I’ll have a 10-minute commute rather than an hour-and-20-minute commute. So I’m really looking forward to — I kind of joke around — seeing my kids in the daylight because when I get home it’s dark and when I leave they’re sleeping.”

— Michael Waiksnis, principal at Knox Middle School, who is leaving June 30 to take a new job with the school system in Fort Mill, South Carolina

• “Abuse is not about reasons. It’s about power. It’s about control of your partner, and it works.”

— Renee Bradshaw, executive director of the Family Crisis Council, speaking Sunday at a service to mark the end of Sexual
Assault Awareness Month

• “It’s a very crazy time for me. Now I’ve got to focus on going to work and making the team.”

— Keion Adams, a former football standout at Salisbury High School who was  selected in the final round of the NFL draft by the Pittsburgh Steelers

• “Every day we pray, we depend on God, and every day we do not pray, we depend on ourselves.”

— The Rev. Jason Brown, speaking Thursday at a National Day of Prayer observance in East Spencer