“Our democracy is designed to speak truth to power.”

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.

I don’t think any person in America should die because they are too poor to live.

It is unacceptable to be disrespectful of Congressman Crowley. He’s done some phenomenal, phenomenal work for the Bronx and Queens.

We have to stick to the message: What are we proposing to the American people? Not, ‘What are we fighting against?’

There is no such thing as talking about class without there being implications of the racial history of the United States. You just can’t do it.

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.

Democracy is defended in 3 stages. Ballot Box, Jury Box, Cartridge Box.

This is the democratic process at work, What you’re seeing with this process is the Iraqi people embracing American-style democracy.

Democrats should be getting high-fives from sanitation truck drivers – that is what should be happening in America.

The only distinction that democracies reward is a high degree of conformity.

What is a democrat? One who believes that the republicans have ruined the country. What is a republican? One who believes that the democrats would ruin the country.

Democracy is four wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch.

And that is my definition of democracy, the right to be in a minority and not be suppressed.