When I went off to college, I went believing I was a Republican. And actually I was president of Young Republicans for a couple of months and then I decided that I was much more in the camp of people like, you know, President Johnson - trying to promote civil rights, voting rights, ending poverty.

We should raise the national minimum wage.

Like being a woman, like being a racial religious tribal or ethnic minority, being LGBT does not make you less human. And that is why gay rights are human rights and human rights are gay rights.

We cannot eradicate violence if we do not build strong, inclusive communities.

I can't stand whining. I can't stand the kind of paralysis that some people fall into because they're not happy with the choices they've made. You live in a time when there are endless choices ... Money certainly helps, and having that kind of financial privilege goes a long way, but you don't even have to have money for it. But you have to work on yourself ... Do something!

I take running for president and being president really seriously. It's a - maybe the toughest job in the world, right? And I knew that there was unfinished business from the successful two terms of President Obama, whom I had served, but that we needed to go further on the economy, on health care, and so much else.

I find it deeply disturbing that someone wanting to be president of the United States would talk the way Donald Trump talks, use the rhetoric, the demagoguery, the bigotry and the bluster and the bullying that he has demonstrated.