"Our platform is crafted by Democrats but it is not about partisanship, its about pragmatism."
"Our platform calls for a balanced deficit reduction plan where the wealthy pay their fair share. And when your country is in a costly war, with our soldiers sacrificing abroad and our nation facing a debt crisis at home, being asked to pay your fair share isn't class warfare - it's patriotism."
"This is our history - from the Transcontinental Railroad to the Hoover Dam, to the dredging of our ports and building of our most historic bridges - our American ancestors prioritized growth and investment in our nation's infrastructure."
"We also must pull from our highest ideals of justice and protect against those ills that destabilized our economy - like predatory lending, over-leveraged financial institutions and the unchecked avarice of the past that trumped fairness and common sense. Our platform calls for significant cuts in federal spending."
"No matter who you are, no matter what your color, creed, how you choose to pray or who you choose to love, that if you are an American - first generation or fifth - one who is willing to work hard, play by the rules and apply your God-given talents - that you should be able to find a job that pays the bills."
"Our platform emphasizes that a vibrant, free and fair market is essential to economic growth."
"We choose forward. We choose inclusion. We choose growing together. We choose American economic might and muscle, standing strong on the bedrock of the American ideal: a strong, empowered and ever-growing middle class."
"When your country is in a costly war, with our soldiers sacrificing abroad and our nation facing a debt crisis at home, being asked to pay your fair share isn't class warfare - it's patriotism."
"You should be able to afford health care for your family. You should be able to retire with dignity and respect. And you should be able to give your children the kind of education that allows them to dream even bigger, go even farther and accomplish even more than you could ever imagine."
"This November, with the re-election of President Barack Obama, this generation of Americans will ever expand upon the hope, the truth and the promise of America."
"People are always trying to draw simplistic dialectics that can capture things."
"I just know that I'm innovative. I'm a quick thinker... In Washington, I just want to be a senator who finds a way to drive change and not figure out a way to conform."
"I am a geek nerd who happened to have a temporary period of jockiness."
"I'd gladly take a grenade, if it meant saving Newark."
"There was a small point in my life in law school, right before I moved to Newark, when I didn't know what I wanted to do, and I felt so lost."
"You can't have a physical transformation until you have a spiritual transformation."
"I debated between law school and divinity."
"I was born after the Civil Rights Movement. I never saw Martin Luther King alive."
"You have to understand the Newark Riots - a lot of people understand that the pain was the initial explosion of anger and alienation, but after that, the response, sending the National Guard troops - a lot of violence was carried out and perpetrated by those who were allegedly coming here to protect residents."
"The richness of America is that we are diverse. We're not Sweden. We're not Norway. We are a great American experiment. And as soon as we start trying to forget race or turn our back on race, number one, we don't confront the real racial realities that still persist."
"I don't want to be a race-transcending leader. I want to be deeply understood as a man, as African- American, as a Christian, all that I am."
"I don't know what God has planned for me or you or anyone, but I do know that in darkness, you discover an indistinguishable light."
"When I was just a twenty-something, I came to Newark, and I found a connection to the city in a spiritual way. I found a connection here and people here that reminded me so much of my roots and my own family."
"I'm going to have setbacks and failures; I'm not going to see change right away all of the time or most of the time. But everybody I've ever respected has failed at one thing or another. I've definitely fallen on my face. But I've also had a comparatively easy life."
"Everybody wants to find their soul mate, and I'm no different. That's definitely what I want in the future."
