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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:

Pastor Corey Brooks, known as the 'Rooftop Pastor,' is the founder and Senior Pastor of New Beginnings Church of Chicago and the CEO of Project H.O.O.D. (Helping Others Obtain Destiny), the church's local mission: If Democrats say they stand with my community, why are so many still failing to learn how to read?

After a long journey, I am more than halfway through building a massive Leadership and Economic Opportunity Center across the street from my church.

Once built, our number one priority will be to teach kids how to read. We will teach the parents, too, if needed. It is not a difficult skill to learn and that is the tragedy here. It takes time and patience. It also takes true empathy to teach a child to read and to dream of a better future, a skill that the Democrats in my city lack.

Byron York, chief political correspondent for The Washington Examiner: Trump talks debate.

'I don't fear debates,' Trump said. 'I did the right thing with the Republicans because I was leading by 75 points. I mean, how do you go and debate guys when you're leading by 75 points?'

Indeed, Trump's no-debate decision in the GOP primaries turned out to be a winner. Now, though, things are different. It's a general election debate between the presumptive nominees of both parties. How could one not do it? 'With a Republican and Democrat, almost no matter what the [standing in the polls] may be, I feel like you have an obligation,' Trump said.

Jonathan Turley, a Fox News Media contributor and the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University: Age of rage vs. free speech: We've been here before and here's what happened.

Despite watching the alarming rise of this anti-free speech movement and the rapid loss of protections in the West, there is still reason to be hopeful.

For those of us who believe that free speech is a human right, there is an inherent and inescapable optimism. We are wired for free speech as humans. We need to speak freely, to project part of ourselves into the world around us. It is essential to being fully human.

In the end, this alliance may reduce our appetite for free speech but we will never truly lose our taste for it. It is in our DNA. That is why this is not our first or our last age of rage. However, it is not the rage that defines us. It is free speech that defines us.

Tim Graham, director of media analysis at the Media Research Center and executive editor of the blog NewsBusters.org: Snopes finally admits media, Democrats were wrong about Trump.

The left-leaning fact-checking website Snopes.com has spurred anger and anxiety among liberals for ruling, right before the first Biden-Trump debate, that former President Donald Trump never praised neo-Nazis at a Charlottesville protest as 'very fine people' in a 2017 press conference with combative reporters.

Snopes checker Taija Perry Cook wrote that 'while Trump did say that there were 'very fine people on both sides,' he also specifically noted that he was not talking about neo-Nazis and white supremacists and said they should be 'condemned totally.' Therefore, we have rated this claim 'False.''