If a hurricane strikes, we can blame the president for not being there; we can blame Congress and FEMA; we can blame the state governments; but in the end, it's the mayors and the local city governments that have to be prepared for emergencies and be prepared to act.

The World Trade Center site will forever hold a special place in our city, in our hearts. But we would be untrue to the best part of ourselves and who we are as New Yorkers and Americans if we said no to a mosque in lower Manhattan.

Other ways of looking at the environmental or climate change stuff is to frame it in the context that it is simultaneously a public health issue. One out of eight premature deaths worldwide happens because of air pollution. The worst power plant in America kills 278 people a year and causes 445 heart attacks. So, when we improve air quality we improve our lives, and at the same time we improve the climate as well. We must see climate policy from this perspective and not as an abstract threat that may threaten our survival in 100 years.

Politicians generally respond to who is going to help them get elected and re-elected.

I think that all money can do is to get your message out. Unfortunately, we live in a world where you have to use mass media to communicate with the people, and it just costs an awful lot of money.

Taxes are not good things, but if you want services, somebody's got to pay for them so they're a necessary evil.

The system [in U.S.] is designed for a two-party system. And those two parties have an interest in keeping third parties out. There's too much of the structure that works in the two-party way. They will keep the third party out.