At times, you need to be forceful to get things that are stuck unstuck.

I have a tendency toward being a micromanager.

When you stand up there and do a press conference, it's a very preoccupied moment. You're standing in front of cameras; people are watching you; it's not so easy to be at ease.

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.

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.

The best thing to know is what you don't know.

I think it's really important to realize that small businesses are often the portal for immigrants into the New York City economy.