Civility isn't just some optional value in a multicultural, multistate democratic republic. Civility is the key to civilization.

I cannot in good conscience ask my colleagues to expend precious time and energy defending or explaining my past. We need all hands on deck, fighting for the future.

I have many sources of inspiration. I'd have to point to Dr. Martin Luther King, first and foremost. But my parents were good, hardworking folks who kept us in the church and the public schools, and out of trouble, for the most part.

We need to think bigger, dream bigger, and get bigger.

If I didn't have that deep grounding, it would be very easy for me to just be someone who is consumed with anger and hatred. And that would be Trump's great victory: to turn us into replicas of him, just on the other side of a wall screen. I refuse to let me or my family or my movement or my friends be turned into the opposite of Trump. I want to be the antidote for Trump.

To green our country, regular people will have to put on hard hats and work boots, roll up their sleeves - and get to work.

If [Donald] Trump throws 20 million off of health care, that's going to be - if he handles this badly - and it's very hard to handle it right, then that's a - a huge advantage in the mid-terms for us.