We have to restore trust between communities and the police.

I think the world would be a lot better off if more people were to define themselves in terms of their own standards and values and not what other people said or thought about them.

I will fight every single day to pass comprehensive immigration-reform legislation with a path to citizenship.

You never know in retrospect whether you did or didn't do exactly the right thing, stay-at-home mothers, gone-away mothers, all ofus worry whether we should have done something differently than we did.

There's nothing wrong with knowing what you want and going after it.

You can bloom wherever you're planted, if you put enough effort into it.

As a young lawyer, I learned to try to find common ground with people, to look for a human connection. When I got to the Senate, despite the fact that there were a lot of people who didn't want me to get there - and were sure they'd never even talk to me, let alone work with me - I really tried to do the job I was sent there to do by the people of New York, which was to get things done for my constituents. I worked with Republicans, and we found a lot of common ground. It isn't easy, but it's part of what we have to do in politics today.