I try to not think too much about how stuff gets seen as it's being done by a woman. Because if you think about it, then you end up thinking about how you're acting, and if you are thinking about how you're acting, then you are preoccupied and you're going to end up being insincere. You're kind of not present.
— Christine Quinn
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.
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 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.
I know New Yorkers are gonna vote for a candidate - me - who has the longest record of delivering for them. They want a mayor who can deliver for them. And I'm the only one - I don't care who gets in - who has that record.
I'm just not gonna let up until I know I've done absolutely everything I can for New Yorkers.
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.
I think 'having it all' is a phrase I don't particularly like. You need to have what you want. 'All' seems to me to be an imposed list, an imposed definition by society of what 'all' is supposed to be.
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.
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.'
For better or worse, when you're running for mayor, there's a little bit of a spotlight on you.
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 have a tendency toward being a micromanager. Which, the bigger the project you're involved in, the harder that becomes.
I'm not about talking and finger-pointing and complaining. I'm about getting things done.
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.
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.
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.
All I wanted was to be involved in politics and government.
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.
Bike lanes - I put that now in the category of things you shouldn't discuss at dinner parties, right? It used to be money and politics and religion. Now, in New York, you should add bike lanes.
To get things done, you have to get people together.
Being an activist is about getting things done. It's not about standing around shaking your fist in anger.
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.
There will be a moment in life, whether you're forceful or not, where someone will label you something that is negative.
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.
At times, you need to be forceful to get things that are stuck unstuck.
There's not a lot of conversation going on in my world about softening my image. I'm pretty much who I am.
I couldn't be more proud of my work as a progressive.
I'm in a position where, if you have the ability, you should use it well. To get things done.
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.
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.
I want to be a better Chris Quinn. I don't want to be a different Chris Quinn.
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.
I couldn't describe how little interest I have in men. Or I could - but I don't think that it would be appropriate.
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.
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.
It would be thrilling, obviously, to be able to have a woman and an openly LGBT person as the mayor of New York City.
Consensus doesn't happen by magic... You have to drive to it.
You don't have to have all the answers all the time. But the best thing to know is what you don't know.
We all think people deserve second chances. None of us are perfect.
You might as well go through life the way you want to. If what you want is to be engaged and forceful, to 'lean in,' well, do that.
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.
I have always said I've had a big personality, and I've always said I'm a pushy broad, and I've always said I want to get things done.
I really believe, when you come out of hiding, in whatever way you're hiding, you get to go out into the sunlight.
Anybody that I can work with that will help improve the lives of New Yorkers, I will work with that person.
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 think it's really important to realize that small businesses are often the portal for immigrants into the New York City economy.
I hope there is nothing about me that people have a big problem with. You know, I like to think of myself as lovable.
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.
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.
