Being an activist is about getting things done. It's not about standing around shaking your fist in anger.

People used to feel oddly empowered to tell me all the reasons I couldn't win. Because I was a woman. Because I was a lesbian. Because I was from the West Side of Manhattan.

For better or worse, when you're running for mayor, there's a little bit of a spotlight on you.

I'm in a position where, if you have the ability, you should use it well. To get things done.

I'm not about talking and finger-pointing and complaining; I'm about getting things done.

The library of my elementary school had this great biography section, and I read all of these paperback biographies until they were dog-eared. The story of Eleanor Roosevelt and Madame Curie and Martin Luther King and George Washington Carver and on and on and on.

My mother would organize huge parties for my elementary school classmates. To prepare, she would go back to the bakery in her old neighborhood of Inwood and get special shamrock cookies. Hawaiian Punch was served and we had shamrock napkins. It was a lot of fun.