Christine Quinn

When I was running for speaker, people would go out of their way to point out why I wasn't going to win: 'You're a woman, you're too liberal, you're gay, you're from the West Side of Manhattan,' which in that context was an insult. ”

Bike lanes are clearly controversial. And one of the problems with bike lanes - and I'm generally a supporter of bike lanes - but one of the problems with bike lanes has been not the concept of them, which I support, but the way the Department of Transportation has implemented them without consultation with communities and community boards. ”

I want to be affirmatively proud of what I have made my way through. And to do that, in the same way I had to tell my father and my family and my friends that I was gay, I need to not hide this anymore. ”

I'm going to do whatever I have to do to help a New Yorker, whether it's a girl on the street or a tenant in a housing development. ”

I'm tough, I'm pushy, I'm really loud. I used to spend a lot of time thinking about it. But we only have so much brain capacity, so if I'm spending part of my brain thinking about how I'm acting, A, I'm not spending all of my brain doing, and B, I'm not actually in that moment. ”

You don't have to have all the answers all the time. But the best thing to know is what you don't know. ”

When you stand up there and do a press conference, it's a very preoccupied moment. You're standing in front of cameras; people are watching you; it's not so easy to be at ease. ”

At times, you need to be forceful to get things that are stuck unstuck. ”

Don't keep your own schedule - that will eat too much of your time keeping your own schedule. And when you are tired, stop. Because if you are too tired, you become not productive, and you are wasting time. ”

I've already begun to put pilot programs in place that give CUNY grads opportunities to get good tech jobs. We should expand on that so that New Yorkers are getting those jobs, because those jobs are probably one of the biggest 21st Century pathways into the middle class. ”