The library of my elementary school had this great biography section, and I read all of these paperback biographies until they were dog-eared. The story of Eleanor Roosevelt and Madame Curie and Martin Luther King and George Washington Carver and on and on and on.
Christine Quinn
I couldn't be more proud of my work as a progressive.
I really believe, when you come out of hiding, in whatever way you're hiding, you get to go out into the sunlight.
When I end up yelling, it's not really deliberate. It's usually out of some moment of passion or frustration or real desire to get unstuck.
Consensus doesn't happen by magic... You have to drive to it.
My mother would organize huge parties for my elementary school classmates. To prepare, she would go back to the bakery in her old neighborhood of Inwood and get special shamrock cookies. Hawaiian Punch was served and we had shamrock napkins. It was a lot of fun.
If you don't like me, life goes on, you know what I mean? But I hope you do like me. Because I think that in addition to being pushy, I'm nice.
Being an activist is about getting things done. It's not about standing around shaking your fist in anger.
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.
I have big emotions, and I care deeply about delivering for New Yorkers, and sometimes that means you got to push things forward - and I think New Yorkers know that.
Chick-fil-A is not welcome in New York City as long as the company's president continues to uphold and promote his discriminatory views.
I'm an aggressive woman who gets things done, and that's the way it is, and I've never been embarrassed about the fact that I am pushy.
All I wanted was to be involved in politics and government.
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.
I hope there is nothing about me that people have a big problem with. You know, I like to think of myself as lovable.
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.
My late mother was very clear to my sister and I that we were to be strong women; that we were to be effective; that we were to be heard.
I'm a lesbian. Yup. Hundred percent. Hundred percent. I remember being in college, and I had fallen in love with this woman, and I remember sitting in my dorm room saying out loud to myself, like, 'You have enough problems. You are not gonna let this happen.' You just kinda, like, stuff it away until - well, some people stuff it away forever.
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 come as one package deal. An Irish lesbian who wakes up every day and goes to work. And I don't spend a lot of time thinking about being 'the first this' or 'the first that' because it would take up space in my brain.
At times, you need to be forceful to get things that are stuck unstuck.
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.
People used to feel oddly empowered to tell me all the reasons I couldn't win. Because I was a woman. Because I was a lesbian. Because I was from the West Side of Manhattan.
I think it's really important to realize that small businesses are often the portal for immigrants into the New York City economy. I think we have something like 40,000 small businesses that are immigrant-run in New York.
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 think it's really important to realize that small businesses are often the portal for immigrants into the New York City economy.
At the end of the day, somebody someday is going to say something about you. At least you can look back and say you lived the way you wanted to.
For better or worse, when you're running for mayor, there's a little bit of a spotlight on you.
I'm tough, and you know what? New Yorkers deserve that. They work head, they fight it out, they slug it out. And they deserve a mayor or a speaker who's going to do the same.
People have said I can come off a little trial-lawyerish. I tell people I never actually became a lawyer, but I play one at City Hall.
My favorite app is 'StumbleUpon,' because it just gives you interesting things that are sometimes exactly the stuff I'm interested in and sometimes just silly and funny.
I have a tendency toward being a micromanager.
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.
New Yorkers have real issues, and they deserve to have a mayor that is prepared to work with them to solve the challenges they have, reduce the problems that they have, and they deserve to have a mayor's race that is focused on them.
I'm not about talking and finger-pointing and complaining. I'm about getting things done.
I just want people to know you can get through stuff. I hope people can see that in what my life has been and where it is going.
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.
One of the things that drives me crazy as a professional woman is you'll have bought a suit, and you get home and realize you don't have a shirt to wear with it.
I understand that not everyone agrees with my perspective on Ray Kelly. But what you gotta look at here is somebody like Bill de Blasio talking out of both sides of his mouth and trying to have it both ways on a really critical issue like stop-and-frisk.
Am I pushy? Yep. Do I like taking 'no' for an answer when 'no' means New Yorkers aren't going to get something they need? No. Do I push back and crack some eggs? Absolutely.
'No one sits Baby in a corner,' one of the best lines in movie history.
Congressmember Weiner has shown just a pattern of reckless behavior, an inability to tell the truth, and what New Yorkers deserve is a mayor with a record of delivering for them, of vision, and a level of maturity and responsibility.
I couldn't describe how little interest I have in men. Or I could - but I don't think that it would be appropriate.
Sometimes I yell, sometimes I raise my voice. I am trying to do it less, because it's not always attractive. It's not always the right thing to do.
At this point in my life, I'm not going to spend a lot of time focusing on dissatisfaction with who I am, and I'm not going to spend a lot of time tempering my personality. Whatever job I have next, I'm going to be somebody who wants to get things done.
I want to be a better Chris Quinn. I don't want to be a different Chris Quinn.
I have a tendency toward being a micromanager. Which, the bigger the project you're involved in, the harder that becomes.
I'm in a position where, if you have the ability, you should use it well. To get things done.
Anybody that I can work with that will help improve the lives of New Yorkers, I will work with that person.
There's not a lot of conversation going on in my world about softening my image. I'm pretty much who I am.
