“For me, democratic socialism is about – really, the value for me is that I believe that in a modern, moral, and wealthy society, no person in America should be too poor to live.”

I’m used to people kind of knowing me in the community.

It’s really scary or it’s easy to generate fear around an idea or around an -ism when you don’t provide any substance to it.

Democrats are a big-tent party. You know, I’m not trying to impose an ideology on all, you know, several hundred members of Congress.

Working-class Americans want a clear champion, and there is nothing radical about moral clarity in 2018.

Congress is too old. They don’t have a stake in the game.

We have a political culture of intimidation, of favoring, of patronage, and of fear, and that is no way for a community to be governed.

The way the Queens Democratic party machine has worked, they operate on a politics of exclusion.

I want to speak to people directly as much as possible.

I just hope that more people will ignore the fatalism of the argument that we are beyond repair. We are not beyond repair. We are never beyond repair.

I understand the pain of working-class Americans because I have experienced the pain.

My mother cleaned homes and drove school buses, and when my family was on the brink of foreclosure… I started bartending and waitressing.

It’s not just that I’m a woman of color running for office. It’s the way that I ran. It’s the way that my identity formed my methods.

I believe that every American should have stable, dignified housing; health care; education – that the most very basic needs to sustain modern life should be guaranteed in a moral society.

Mentors of mine were under a big pressure to minimize their femininity to make it. I’m not going to do that. That takes away my power. I’m not going to compromise who I am.

We know enough to reject the stereotype that people in the Midwest do not care about their brothers and sisters.

We are fighting for an unapologetic movement for economic, social, and racial justice in the United States.

In a democracy, everyone has a right to put forward one’s views. But people resorting to violent demonstrations in the name of Dalits are bound to be exposed.

Democracy or politics done without values and ideals is dangerous for the country.

Public sentiment should be respected.

In a democracy, there should be representation from every field.

Vegetarian food is actually good for the body.

Winning and losing have their significance in a democracy. But there should be no arrogance in victory, nor should there be any despondency in defeat.

The crisis of modern democracy is a profound one. Free elections, a free press and an independent judiciary mean little when the free market has reduced them to commodities available on sale to the highest bidder.

Democracy no longer means what it was meant to. It has been taken back into the workshop. Each of its institutions has been hollowed out, and it has been returned to us as a vehicle for the free market, of the corporations. For the corporations, by the corporations.