I just want people to know you can get through stuff. I hope people can see that in what my life has been and where it is going.

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.

All I wanted was to be involved in politics and government.

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.

I'm going to do whatever I have to do to help a New Yorker, whether it's a girl on the street or a tenant in a housing development.

I have a tendency toward being a micromanager. Which, the bigger the project you're involved in, the harder that becomes.