But I make the observation that no one of us would do things exactly alike.

You can be anything you want to be. You can be a street sweeper, if you want. Just be the best blasted street sweeper you can be . . . And, you know you can be mayor.

And, as a matter of fact, I am the chairman of the Amadou Diallo Foundation.

My mother came here to New York. She and my grandmother were domestics, cooking, cleaning for other people.

Some of us claim that New York City is the capital of the country, indeed the capital of the world. Now, that may be a bit much for those who don't come from New York, but clearly we are an important city for reasons of our cultural advantages.

Today, certain people file for bankruptcy, businesses and individuals, and it no longer has the stigma it once had. Now it's almost considered wise, a way to regroup and come back again.

Children are amazing, and while I go to places like Princeton and Harvard and Yale, and of course I teach at Columbia, NYU, and that's nice and I love students, but the most fun of all are the real little ones, the young ones.