“I felt like the only way to effectively run for office is if you had access to a lot of wealth, high social influence, a lot of dynastic power, and I knew that I didn’t have any of those things.”

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.

You don’t have to lose yourself so others feel like they belong.

One can be in love with several people at the same time, feel the sorrow with each, and not betray any of them.

I feel like Im able to relate to all races of people because when you learn to tap into the raw emotion of a person, that goes past color.

Let me kiss you one last time now that I know I will feel you on my lips for the rest of my life.

It is important allow to feel what I feel, but not to let it dictate my day or week or life.

It’s a no win situation. It’s a mug’s game. The religions have contrived to make it impossible to disagree with them critically without being rude. They play the hurt feelings card at every opportunity.

When words tripped off the side of your grin, I felt the statement slip toward my ear like the slide of a skateboard on griptape – how it led me to hate a sport I’ve never even tried.

You can get used to anything if you have to, even feeling perpetually guilty.