I’d like them to say that Shirley Chisholm had guts. That’s how I’d like to be remembered.

Be as bold as the first man or [woman] to eat an oyster.

Some members of Congress are among the best actors in the world.

As things are now, no one can tell to whom members of Congress are responsible, except that it does not often appear to be to the people. Everyone else is represented in Washington by a rich and powerful lobby, it seems. But there is no lobby for the people.

We have never seen health as a right. It has been conceived as a privilege, available only to those who can afford it. This is the real reason the American health care system is in such a scandalous state.

My God, what do we want? What does any human being want?

... all Americans are the prisoners of racial prejudice.