I heard somebody say that you can't judge a tree by the bark it wears but by the fruit it bears.

We do need brothers and sisters to go into elected offices and political offices and do that, but my spirit is telling me something different. Because you are a Democrat or Republican you have to do this but you can't do that and so it's somewhat limiting in what you can actually do and I've done that.

I loved the city, so the feeling in 2001 [election] first was shock, then (I was) nervous, then scared but then it's - I really wasn't happy and ecstatic like I thought I (would be). I was immediately hit with the enormity of the responsibility and the fact that most people in that town - particularly those that voted for me were placing their hopes and dreams in me. That is a big, big stressful place to be.

My kids want to go back to Detroit everyday, that's their home. They want to be there. But Detroit is going through something that I don't want to be a part of.

Personality is a person among persons. There is no personality of one man on a desert island.

Michigan is very racially separated and the city of Detroit itself is 84 percent African-American and the surrounding suburbs are 86 percent White.

I heard somebody say that you can't judge a tree by the bark it wears but by the fruit it bears.