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

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.

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?’

Our democracy is designed to speak truth to power.

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.

I don’t like having people do little things for me.

We have to have a diversity of age represented in Congress, too.

I was born to a dad who was born in the South Bronx while the Bronx was burning, while landlords were committing arson to their own buildings.

It’s disingenuous to pretend the sources of our money don’t impact the policy we write – you just can’t serve two masters.

The Republicans galvanize their base by inciting a lot of fear; they operate on a lot of mythmaking. So we have to have something compelling. We shouldn’t be afraid to be bold.

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.

No love is Love that subjugates the Lover. No love is Love that feeds on flesh and blood. No love is Love that draws a woman to a man only to breed more women and men and thus perpetuate their bondage to the flesh.

Where unwilling dies the rose; buds the new another year.

Some people imagine that death is the only destination of life.

I came into this world screaming. I plan to leave it quieter, softer and letting everything I’ve done do the talking.

That would be a good thing for them to cut on my tombstone: Wherever she went, including here, it was against her better judgment.

It doesn’t matter whether you believe in God or not. Still, one day you will come to meet death. Perhaps, you can stop believing in death too; in order to live forever.

Mother, I want to die this world is too cruel and I am too fragile.

While the parts change, the whole always remains the same. For every thief who departs this world, a new one is born. And every decent person who passes away is replaced by a new one. In this way not only does nothing remain the same but also nothing ever really changes.