Top quotes from U.S. shoppers on Black Friday

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The following are comments from some of the many shoppers who flocked to malls around the United States on "Black Friday," the traditional kick-off to the holiday season marked by discounts and "door-buster" promotions.

-- "The dollar goes a long way today," said Tobi Tommaney, a 26-year-old actress carting around five large bags from J.C. Penney and Target through the Glendale Galleria mall near Los Angeles.

"Holy crap, I should have brought some emotional support," said Tommaney, who said she was stunned to see the crowds that greeted her at 5:00 a.m. "At Mervyn's, there were so many people, it was a madhouse!"

-- "I don't really set a budget for shopping," said Sheila Kearney, an administrator for Miami-Dade County government outside a Miami shopping mall. "What can I say? I'm a Libra. I love to shop."

Kearney said everybody should be worried about the economy: "It's the economy, stupid. They need to bring back that slogan. Wasn't it Hillary's husband who coined it?"

-- "Despite the tent, we've been freezing almost the whole time since we got here," said 19-year-old student Adam Wishne, who had lined up since Thursday morning outside the Geneva, Illinois Best Buy for discounted laptop computers. "But it was worth it for the great deals we got."

-- "I'm not shopping for anybody but myself," said Norris Little, 59, at J.C. Penney in New York's Queens borough.

He added he was aware of the threat of recession and a housing market bust but was not affected by them: "You got to shop whether it costs a lot of money or it don't cost a lot of money."

-- "I would have spent like $500 last year. We'll kick it up a notch this year, probably a grand or so," said Bridget Purifoy, 45, a cruise line administrator shopping at a Miami mall.

-- "If you're going to shop for the holidays, you might as well shop at 50 percent off today," said Annabelle Frausto, a 22-year-old college student shopping at the Glendale Galleria mall near Los Angeles. "Twenty percent off is not worth it -- they'll be having that for the rest of the year."

-- Carolyn Diggs, shopping at Macy's in Washington D.C., said she wouldn't cut back on toy spending despite a flurry of recalled Chinese goods found to contain lead or defective parts: "It's not going to stop me. My son's five and does not put stuff in his mouth anymore."

-- "I had to park five blocks away," said a woman named Rebecca, who declined to give her last name, shopping at a J.C. Penney in New York's Queens borough. "You can put that in your story."

(Reporting by Alexandria Sage in Los Angeles, Michael Christie and Jim Loney in Miami, Nick Zieminski in New York, Nick Carey in Chicago, Rachelle Younglai in Washington; Editing by Tim Dobbyn)