I'm still amazed at how my mother emerged from her lonely early life as such an affectionate and levelheaded woman.

The present system is unsustainable. The only question is whether we will master the change or it will master us.

You know Chuck [Schumer] - always got to be the big macher.

I think that if you live long enough, you realize that so much of what happens in life is out of your control, but how you respond to it is in your control. That's what I try to remember.

Many Americans are feeling, you know, shut out, shut down, the great recession hasn't ended for too many Americans, wages are flat, families are struggling, not enough new jobs, or new businesses are being created, and it's important that we all try to figure out what we're going to do, and that's what I've done my entire life, fighting for a higher minimum wage, or family leave, now paid family leave which I believe in, equal pay for equal work.

No society can thrive when half its people are left behind.

We can do better. ...We can't ignore the inequalities that persist in our justice system that undermine our most deeply held values of fairness and equality.