“What is more comforting to the terrorists around the world: the failure to pass the 9/11 legislation because we lacked a majority of the majority,’ or putting aside partisan politics to enact tough new legislation with America’s security foremost in mind?”

As individuals, we will be judged in our lives by the totality of our actions. Not one thing will stand out. And I think that’s how we get judged by our colleagues and that’s how we get judged by the good lord.

It is one thing to train officers on fighting crime. It is a whole other thing to train them to build friendships and relationships, which are integral to fighting crime. This takes time, effort, and patience on the part of police officers.

We can define the rules of police-citizen engagement, but everyday decisions will always be made by men and women in uniform, on the street, in the community, under extreme pressure, in a dangerous world where guns easily fall into the wrong hands.

I believe the record I was allowed to help establish by the side of the president was important.

Because of the president’s leadership, every American will have access to affordable, quality health care.

I sometimes joke, Paula, even paranoid people have enemies.

For all the things that make Chicago great, for all the things that make us proud to call ourselves Chicagoans, the violence that is happening corrodes our core. It is not the Chicago we know and love.

In the White House, you can be on the pitcher’s mound or you can be in the catcher’s position. Put points on the board. Show people you can govern. Deliver on what you said you were going to deliver on.

When it comes to federal elections law, Tom DeLay and his special-interest friends live by one set of rules, and everyone else lives by a very different set.

The American people want change. They want big ideas, big reform.

I do not believe the government has the right to investigate somebody’s private life.

You never let a serious crisis go to waste. And what I mean by that it’s an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before.

We invoke the sacrifices of our fallen heroes in the abstract, but we seldom take time to thank them individually.

Rather than doing the kind of fact-checking that normally goes with a story, you ran with certain stories for not wanting to get beat. There’s a pressure that exists in your profession. I would be surprised in any honest exchange that you say that doesn’t exist.

No citizen is a second class citizen in the city of Chicago. If my children are treated one way, every child is treated the same way.

There are too many senior citizens and good residents in Chicago who are sick and tired of having to walk several blocks out of their way when they leave their homes just to avoid the gangs and drug dealers on the street corner.

A lie doesn’t become truth, wrong doesn’t become right and evil doesn’t become good, just because it’s accepted by a majority.

A Bill of Rights that means what the majority wants it to mean is worthless.

Why go with the majority when you can find your own direction?

In the vast majority of businesses, there is simply no such thing as “the best.”

Our job is going to be to hold Donald Trump and the Republican majority accountable.

The means of many outweigh the means of the few or one.

The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.

There has never been a successful social movement for any minority without the support of the majority.