Mike Quigley Quotes

You have the biggest impact on controlling, on affecting local lives as mayor. It's so much more important than being a state legislator.

To me, the most powerful people in this country, politically, are mayors. If you took all the mayors of the 25 biggest cities and you got them together, you could do more on that level than you ever could through the bureaucracy in Washington.

Everything from who sits on your local board of education to the prosecutors and judicial appointments in your area and much more are all impacted by who holds political office.

I guess a small-town mayor is sort of like a community organizer, except that you have actual responsibilities.

Mayors of New York are almost automatically national figures.

In most places in the country, voting is looked upon as a right and a duty, but in Chicago it's a sport.

Be not surprised that I am turned politician. The whole town is immersed in politics.

Chicago ain’t ready for reform!

A mayor is a political leader for a city. He doesn't know anything necessarily about city administration, and furthermore he shouldn't have to.

I believe in the two party system nationally, but not for large cities like New York.

I think Bill de Blasio is doing interesting housing stuff in New York, Rahm Emanuel is doing interesting stuff with the infrastructure bank in Chicago. I want to go to America to meet with and engage with American mayors.

Racial politics in Chicago has a long history of being intertwined with the mayor's race, but I'd like to think we're past much of that.

The mayoral mentality is incredibly valuable. I don't want to lose that.

I hope to make clear that involvement in small scale community work can make a difference in our city's politics.

Mayors in any city are pretty non-partisan people where it's problem solvers.

You have to take over your town in order to take over your city.

I think it's weird that people think someone who's not a politician could be the mayor of Chicago.

The background of a mayor of a city of any size is a background of somebody who on one hand is an executive and on the other hand is very close to the ground.

Obviously as a mayor, I'm in competition with my neighboring cities as well as cities around the country.

It's true that not every day a little black girl in a low-income family from a segregated steel town makes the runoff to be the mayor of the third-largest city in America.

I have my own vision to lead the Seoul City, but whether or not I can display it totally depends on the citizens.

Portland needs a mayor who is going to take on the significant issues this city is facing.

I think we've always thought that it's important to have a positive relationships with local government rather than taking a confrontational kind of stance.

I've always believed in local government.

I've been hearing from people saying they see me more than they do their city council member.