This - the leadership of the mayor is crucial, because it is to the mayor that people will look to provide the vision, the energy, and the sense of confidence in the rebuilding and the recovery.

Poverty, the racial divide and social injustice do not impact only those who suffer most visibly. Alleviating poverty and injustice is a responsibility we must never forget or abandon.

Progress rarely comes as a result of being passive.

Money is not our primary aim. Changing the behavior and the practice of the gun industry is.

We must continue to have voting rights in the state, not to politicize this, but they must have a voice in the rebuilding effort in the community from which they have been displaced.

We stand ready to work together, where possible, in helping rebuild not only homes and businesses, but most importantly, lives of those who so desperately need our help.

What would it take for you to acknowledge that race is an issue? Maybe you don't want to acknowledge that race is an issue.

A police officer wears a uniform. They're sworn to uphold the law. They're public servants. And they should not be above the law.

Because Katrina put it out there, no one can play the pretend game anymore that there isn't poverty and inequality in this country. The Millions More Movement - Katrina gives it added significance.

Sometimes you need to loose in order to win.

He that dies a martyr proves that he was not a knave, but by no means that he was not a fool.

...for chess, that superb, cold, infinitely satisfying anodyne to life, I feel the ardour of a lover, the humility of a disciple.

If we love (the poor) people, we want to identify with them and share with them.

If someone had told me in 1963 that one day I would be in Congress, I would have said, 'You're crazy. You don't know what you're talking about.'

How does it happen that something that makes so much sense in the moonlight doesn't make any sense at all in the sunlight?

Anybody in the spotlight can get lost in that if they are not careful.

If a woman is to know herself, then periods of solitude should be courted, planned, and embraced.

My idea of what God should be is a good guy. I don't think there's any good in killing people in the name of your God.

Scientific knowledge is an enabling power to do either good or bad — but it does not carry instructions on how to use it.