You can be anything you want to be. You can be a street sweeper, if you want. Just be the best blasted street sweeper you can be . . . And, you know ….

And, as a matter of fact, I am the chairman of the Amadou Diallo Foundation..

Well, I think I am a very, very lucky person. I'm very fortunate..

In 1975 I was among a group of blacks who formed the Black Americans in Support of Israel Committee..

And I tell people I'm in charge of children, children I haven't even met yet..

As a matter of fact, even when I finished law school, I had no notion of public service then..

But the courts have dismissed the lawsuits against me and Lee Brown..

You can't twist Al Sharpton's arm..

There is no point in me worrying about what Bloomberg or Badillo will do..

I finished law school in '56, but I was working two jobs..

Some of us claim that New York City is the capital of the country, indeed the capital of the world. Now, that may be a bit much for those who don't c….

We borrowed money, it helped us with bonds and what not, and the Federal Government backed it, but it was a guarantee, it was not a grant. And we not….

The art and culture that is New York, communications, finance, all these things help make up New York. The rest of the country should be happy that w….

I haven't committed a crime. What I did was fail to comply with the law..

My mother came here to New York. She and my grandmother were domestics, cooking, cleaning for other people..

But I make the observation that no one of us would do things exactly alike..

. . .little has changed in our New York neighborhoods except the faces, the names, and the languages spoken. The same decent values of hard work and ….

I love kids and I maintain that they are our future, that we adults owe them the ability to achieve their potential and that we don't own this planet….

Well, I'm not sure, but of one thing I am certain: History judges one differently than contemporary observers, and so I think that as time passes, I ….

Children are amazing, and while I go to places like Princeton and Harvard and Yale, and of course I teach at Columbia, NYU, and that's nice and I lov….

The people really are what make New York City great..