I'm secure in who I am. I don't need the validation of those that would say, you have to be a certain thing in order to be accepted. I'm comfortable going against the grain if I need to.

I never got into politics for it to be a career.

They said that I had sold out and (am an) Uncle Tom. And I said well, they deserve to have that view. But I have my thoughts. And I think they're race-hustling poverty pimps.

I have often said one of the reasons more blacks don't support Republicans is because they don't trust the GOP establishment.

In 1989 when I switched from Democrat to Republican, with God as my witness, not one thing changed about what I believed about one man and one woman in a marriage or about diversity of color. That's a good thing.

I don't know if anybody has moved up the ladder more quickly than I have.

My work in the House of Representatives, at this time in my life, is completed. It is time to return home.