1985 IN QUOTES

“Hail Satan!”

--Night Stalker suspect Richard Ramirez as he left a Superior Court preliminary hearing.

“The message has to go out: ‘If you don’t want a battering ram breaking down your wall and SWAT coming through your doors, don’t deal dope.’ ”

--Los Angeles Police Chief Daryl F. Gates on the debut of the department’s 14-foot battering ram.

” . . . If I simply joined the voices of those who all week long attacked Farrakhan before he spoke, (Farrakhan would have been) encouraged to use . . . inflammatory remarks. If, on the other hand, I tried an appeal for restraint and it worked, it would be a great victory for Los Angeles.”

--Mayor Tom Bradley, explaining why he did not denounce the anti-Semitic rhetoric of Black Muslim leader Louis Farrakhan before Farrakhan’s appearance at the Forum.

“I spent the night before and the night before and the night before . . . in a cardboard box in a dumpster, hoping the garbage men won’t throw me away.”

--Jimmy Lewis Black, one of 1,000 homeless people in Los Angeles to respond to a poll on where they spent the previous night.

“I don’t care about anything outside this classroom. (Laughter in the courtroom.) Well, that (a classroom) is what it feels like.”

--Municipal Judge Aviva K. Bobb, attempting to keep an attorney from steering off course during the often chaotic preliminary hearing in the McMartin Pre-School molestation case.

“I must have telephoned every rabbi in Los Angeles before one of them passed me on to a rabbi who would do it.”

--Actor Jeffrey Stuart, 25, who was united with receptionist Penny Floyd, 21, in a traditional Jewish wedding on the catwalk of a billboard on Sunset Boulevard.

“Get this image of Efrem Zimbalist out of your mind and substitute Ralph Kramden, without the humor.”

--Stanley Greenberg, defense attorney for 240-pound accused spy and former FBI agent Richard W. Miller, asserting that Miller more closely resembled a television character out of “The Honeymooners” than “The FBI Story.”

“The very freeway system that joins the worlds of culture and opportunity with the worlds of great hotels and restaurants allows those who use them to drive right over the poor. The poor are unseen beneath us.”

--Catholic Bishop Roger M. Mahony at ceremonies elevating him to archbishop of Los Angeles.

“I am not happy that I have AIDS, but if that (acknowledgement) is helping others, I can, at least, know that my own misfortune had some positive worth.”

--Message from actor Rock Hudson read at an AIDS benefit by colleague Burt Lancaster.

“It was sad to see the fans holding their hands out, wanting me to pitch them a bag. It was almost like my arms had been cut off.”

--Dodger vendor Roger (The Peanut Man) Owens, on the stadium’s brief ban against throwing bags of peanuts.