“Every policy officer is sworn to protect life, and, under the most extreme circumstances, to take life. It is a staggering responsibility that requires officers to make split second decisions.”

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.

In millions of encounters each year between the police and the public, it may be too much to expect that every officer will always get it right. But it is not too much to expect that we can put the right safeguards in place to hold officers accountable when they get it wrong.

I don’t want to go negative on Franklin Delano Roosevelt, but he didn’t pass an economic deal in the first 100 days. We have passed the largest Recovery Act in the history of the country.

Things happened there that I don’t think are the finest hours for anybody, whether it was a journalist, the legal system or, in that case of the political system, who would say that was an example of when Washington worked best.

Bob Rubin was opposed to signing the welfare bill. He’s not exactly what I call a flaming liberal.

I would like to run for the mayor of the city of Chicago. That has always been an aspiration of mine even when I was in the House of Representatives.

Gun violence in Chicago is unacceptable. It threatens everything we have done together and all of the progress we have made in other areas.

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?

There was no blueprint or how-to manual for fixing a global financial meltdown, an auto crisis, two wars and a great recession, all at the same time.

Laquan McDonald is a wake-up call to all of us. It’s a reminder there’s a lot broken.

I only get ill when I give up drugs. I don’t have a drug problem, I have a police problem.

Let me be clear about this. I don’t have a drug problem. I have a police problem.

[J.Lo] found us a police car. Sort of. ‘It’s not a police car,’ I said. ‘It is,’ said J.Lo. ‘Looknow. Lights for flashing.’ ‘That’s true.’ ‘Writing on the sides.’ ‘Yeah, but the writing? It says ”BullShake Party Patrol.” Yes. Whatnow?

I have quite a few good friends in Philadelphia who were police officers.

There’s nothing wrong with being a cop. There’s nothing wrong with being a white person. It’s about where your heart is…We’ve got to get everyone beyond the xenophobic isolationism.

We were like heroes, to stand there and observe the police, and the police were scared to move upon us.

In keeping people straight, principle is not as powerful as a policeman.

I think the success of democracy is not really police security; it’s the presence of a broad middle class.