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A compilation of quotations on a variety of issues by national, state and regional writers, well-known personalities, just plain everyday people and from various publications collected by the editors of THE ADVANCE.

Quotes for our Times:

Mark J. Penn, chairman and CEO of Stagwell, Inc., chairman of the Harris Poll, and a Fox News contributor: Joe Biden's 2023 State of the Union is his campaign manifesto and he's just taken a big gamble.

Overall, the big gamble of the speech, and of his nascent re-election campaign, is how the president can raise his poor job ratings with new taxes and big promises while sidestepping or ignoring the kitchen-table issues of inflation, immigration and crime on the minds of many Americans who see the country as headed in the wrong direction.

David N. Bossie president of Citizens United and author: Democrats: Biden's State of the Union had one obvious takeaway and his speech sailed right past it.

By not coming clean with the American people about recession fears, prolonged inflation, violent crime, fentanyl overdosing, or the Communist Chinese threat, Biden made it abundantly clear in his 2023 State of the Union address why his administration will be remembered as the least transparent in the history of the republic.

Greg Gutfeld, host of Gutfeld! and co-host of The Five: We should point fingers at China and not at each other.

And that the bigger problem for us is this conflict as sport. China unleashes a spy balloon and it should unite every one of us across the country, all pointing upward. We should be pointing fingers at China and not at each other. But with immediate 'who can blame the other party first?' But you know who I blame for that? Joe Biden. Yeah, I'm a hypocrite, but I know I am. And Joe was elected based on unifying, but instead cleaves us like a head of lettuce on 'Iron Chef.' But hopefully the next windbag we get rid of will be him.

Brit Hume, Fox News Channel political analyst: Comments on Biden's State of the Union speech.

“Looking at this one and this man giving it, I think that there are two ways to look at this speech,” he said. “One is, you know, the speech itself, what it said, the programs announced, the spending promise, the remedies for the bragging about what their accomplishments are and all of that. The other way is looking at this man, this 80-year-old man, the oldest president, I guess, ever, and whether he got through the speech well. And it seemed to me that it was an awful lot of stumbling and slurring and words left out and so on.

Leah Barkoukis, online features editor at Townhall.com: Biden raises eyebrows for going off script to make this comment about China’s president.

Sen. Marco Rubio said, “One of them had to do with China, where he said, ‘Name me one world leader,’ he actually screamed into the camera, ‘Name me one world leader that would trade places with President Xi. Basically any dictator on the planet would love to be president for life of the second-largest economy in the world and a rapidly growing military that can fly balloons over the continental United States and have nothing happen to them. And that joins a list of a lot of bizarre things tonight.”