I was never fearful or scared. I knew God had me and my wife and children knew it as well so we just marched.

When you are going through something like compaign run nothing happens without Allah's permission. So a lot of the times you just have to surrender to his will and learning how to surrender was a major thing for me, getting me out of the way, surrendering to the will of God.

My dream in growing up in the city of Detroit was to be Mayor. At the family picnics from the time I was 9-years-old that's what I told people I was going to be. The mayor of the city of Detroit.

There were never a lot of attacks on my work. We were building more parks than were ever built in the city, building more recreation centers, fixing more streets. We had national events, the Super Bowl, the (Major League Baseball) All-Star game, Final Four. We built seven hotels. The city hadn't built a hotel in 20 or more years.

What I learned in politics (is that) it's a very enslaving place to be. It's hard to be free in politics and if the search for your spirit is to be free, it's hard.

The job of being president, understanding the particular policies that America has gotten itself into over the past 400 years.

I didn't want to be president; I didn't want to be governor; I didn't want to be a congress person. I just wanted to be mayor of the city of Detroit. I lived there my entire life.