You cannot be afraid to speak up and speak out for what you believe. You have to have courage, raw courage.

I heard Dr. King speaking on the radio, and it seemed like he was saying, "John Robert Lewis, you too can make a contribution. You can get involved!"

In spite of all of the things, the issues, that we may be confronting today, I'm very hopeful, very optimistic about the future.

When I was 15 years old in the tenth grade, I heard Martin Luther King, Jr. Three years later, when I was 18, I met Dr. King and we became friends. Two years after that I became very involved in the civil rights movement. I was in college at the time. As I got more and more involved, I saw politics as a means of bringing about change

We have had a great relationship with the White House.We just had every cabinet person designee of ours meet with the cabinet members of the [Barack] Obama administration on Friday. I've met numerous times with Denis McDonough, they've been nothing but helpful.

[Donald Trump's inauguration] will be the first one that I miss since I've been in Congress. You cannot be at home with something that you feel that is wrong, is not right.

I have fought too hard and for too long against discrimination based on race and color not to stand up against discrimination based on sexual orientation. I've heard the reasons for opposing civil marriage for same-sex couples. Cut through the distractions, and they stink of the same fear, hatred and intolerance I have known in racism and in bigotry.