We can affirm our values as a country and have immigration systems that support our economy, that grow our country, and that make sure that we stay secure and strong.

I am the descendant of slaves, of people that were born from a slave and a slave master.

I've stayed put in the neighborhood where I first got my start and will never forget the people that believed in me and gave me my first chance.

I think a lot of folks are beginning to feel that the forces that are tearing us apart in this country are stronger than the forces that tie us together. I don't believe that.

Americans are losing faith in this country's ability to work for them.

On a daily basis, I think it's really important to be conscious of gender-based discrimination - which presents in sometimes more, but often less, obvious forms - and do everything possible to defeat that discrimination.

While most men don't have first-hand experience with gender-based discrimination, we can still be powerful allies for advancing women's rights. We need to do a better job of listening to women and standing up for what's right, even when it's not popular or comfortable.

To me, feminism is believing in women's equality, and I ardently ascribe to that belief.

My whole career has been marked by taking on the toughest problems, bringing people together, creating uncommon coalitions to ultimately produce uncommon results - things that people said couldn't be done.

I've taken on impossible fights before and won and I've done it not by taking on the tactics and techniques of demagogues and bullies but by calling people to our higher angels, calling to the moral imagination of communities about what we can be and what we can achieve together.

As soon as I got out of law school, I went to inner city Newark, New Jersey, to become a housing rights lawyer, because people fought for my housing rights, I was going to pay it forward by fighting for others.

We need a president that can heal, that can bring people together, that can get us back. We have so much common pain in this country that can get us back to a sense of common purpose and common cause.

We've got to get back to a country that can get things done. And my whole career has been marching and charging at and running toward some of the most difficult problems in America and finding ways to create new coalitions to get things done.

A more courageous empathy is needed in our country to see the struggles of people from factory towns to farm towns to city towns who can't even afford the rent in their cities anymore because costs are going so high.

Democrats need to define themselves - not what they're against or who they're against, but we have got to define ourselves with what we're for.

I think there's a lot of folks who believe that this is a time that Democrats have to fight fire with fire. As a guy who ran a fire department, that's not a really good strategy.

In fact, when I first came to the Senate, people laughed. I had people telling me, 'There's no way you're going to get a comprehensive criminal justice reform bill done.'

Food is at the core of our lives in ways we don't always think about - how it affects our environment, how it affects our health and well-being, how it affects the expense of society, the expense of government.

I'm very concerned about U.S. food policy.

Being vegan for me is a cleaner way of not participating in practices that don't align with my values.

I want to try to live my own values as consciously and purposefully as I can.

When I do my hiring in the United States Senate, I look at issues of diversity.

Having people that really reflect the spectrum of American experiences is important to have on the Supreme Court.

I have seen too many of my male friends - no matter whether they're on the football field or inside a church - bash gays and then revel in their machismo or piety.