The over-representation of Wall Street banks in senior government positions sends a bad message. It tells people that one - and only one - point of view will dominate economic policymaking.

Who is Antonio Weiss? He's the head of global investment banking for the financial giant Lazard.

If large financial institutions can break the law and accumulate million in profits - and, if they get caught, settle by paying out of those profits - they do not have much incentive to follow the law.

I'm really concerned that too-big-to-fail has become too-big-for-trial.

My brothers and I grew up on stories about our grandfather building one-room schoolhouses and about our grandparents' courtship and their early lives together in Indian Territory.

I have to prove myself to everybody.

All I can say is I was a lot more discreet as a candidate than I was in real life. Can I say that? Maybe it's indiscreet to talk about discretion.

Writing laws based on an abstract theory, rather than reality, is a dangerous undertaking.

I graduated law school nine months pregnant and didn't take a job.

I was 30 before I realized, you know, that I probably was an accident. These things just suddenly hit you one day.

If you don't talk about families, then it's easy to disembody subprime mortgages and asset securitization and unemployment rates without remembering that every one of those numbers is a million families.

You have to remember: what are incomes to banks are outgoes to families.

I think a lot of Americans are not sure which side Washington is on: the side of banks or the side of the people.

We need a new model: If you can't explain it, you can't sell it.

There's been such a sense that there's one set of rules for trillion-dollar financial institutions and a different set for all the rest of us. It's so pervasive that it's not even hidden.

We cannot run a democracy without a strong middle class.

I never sought nor gained personal benefit in school or job applications based on my heritage.

Growing up, my mother and grandparents often talked about our family's Native American heritage. As a kid, I never thought to ask them for documentation - what kid would?

I know what I am in Washington to do: I'm here to fight for hardworking families.

I had a baby and stayed home for a couple of years, and I was really casting about, thinking, 'What am I going to do?' My husband's view of it was, 'Stay home... We'll have more children; you'll love this.' And I was very restless about it.

Are you ready to fight for good jobs and and a solid level playing field? Are you ready to prove to another generation of Americans that we can build a better country and a newer world? Joe Biden is ready. Barack Obama is ready. I am ready. You're ready.

President Obama believes in a level playing field.

Mitt Romney is the guy who said corporations are people. No, Governor Romney, corporations are not people.

Me, I was waiting tables of 13 and married at 19. I graduated from public schools, and taught elementary school.