After I became an attorney, the mother of two girls I'd known in high school came to see me. She'd endured years of heinous abuse from her husband that nearly destroyed her. I'd never suspected a thing.

I understand that during [Sonia Sotomayor's] career, she's written hundreds and hundreds of opinions. I haven't read a single one of them, and if I'm fortunate before we end this, I won't have to read one of them.

This nation has been through hard times. But those hard times have hardened our resolve. Im ready to do the difficult work ahead. But I want to do that work with Barack Obama, and not a Tea Party ideologue. We can move America forward, but we can only do it together.

He [Mitt Romney] didn't pay taxes for 10 years! Now, do I know that that's true? Well, I'm not certain, but obviously he can't release those tax returns. How would it look?

[Social Security ] is not in crisis at this stage. Leave Social Security alone. We have a lot of other places we can look that is in crisis. But Social Security is not.

The American people do not like privatization. They are afraid of the debt the president's willing to do. And they don't like benefit cuts. And everyone here should understand all 45 Senate Democrats are united. We are not going to let this happen.

The threat to change Senate rules is a raw abuse of power and will destroy the very checks and balances our founding fathers put in place to prevent absolute power by any one branch of government.