Chirlane McCray Quotes

If you ask the right questions, you learn a lot about people.

It’s really hard to get enough sleep, so I try to end my days by 9 P.M. so my husband and I have time to watch TV, chat, and then I like to read for at least half an hour before bed, but we have a lot of events, and there are places to go and people to talk to.

A very tiny percentage of people with mental illness are also violent. We know this. The constant linking of the two together in national media is so misleading.

I went to Wellesley College, and it was really hard for me to get a job after I graduated. I would go into places where I would not see any black people at all in Boston – like, zero. And then in publishing in New York City, it was pretty much the same. I knew that it wasn’t about the value of my work.

You can be chased home or hit or called names or spit on, and it’s over. You have the memory of it, but it’s very different from the emotional and psychological experience of feeling invisible, of not learning the confidence to stand up in class and speak.

I was a lifeguard, camp counselor, the president of the YMCA Leaders Corps. I also took piano lessons. I was a dancer.

I would consider running for office. But not for mayor.

Government is not just about maintaining the status quo. It’s about helping people’s lives to work.

Some people are just quiet – they don’t need to be talking all the time and aren’t extroverted, but they’re not necessarily afraid to talk. I’m not really a shy person.

I have the advantage of many perspectives as someone who has lived in different kinds of communities: as a woman, as someone who previously identified as a lesbian, as someone who is a person of color. I’ve had a lot of life, so that informs what I do.

When you become first lady, it’s like, ‘O.K., now what do you do?’

I’d like to be out in the city every day, listening to what people are saying and asking about what they need. I’d like to inspire others by doing as much as I can to help people who are trying to make a better life for themselves and others.

Labels put people in boxes, and those boxes are shaped like coffins.

I know my husband loves me fiercely and passionately. I know he supports me and will always stand up for me.

‘Bad mother’ is probably the worst thing you can say to any woman who has children.

We have to think about the state of women in a more holistic way going forward. We can’t be segregated by class and race as we have been. Because even the women at the top can do something about violence against women, right?

I am more than just a label. Why are people so driven to labeling where we fall on the sexual spectrum?

I had never had a deep sense of belonging anywhere. I always felt I was an outsider.

I’m a woman and a person of color; I know what it’s like out there in the workplace.

Pay equity matters because those dollars add up over time.

Symbols are important. It depends on how they’re used.

It took a long time for me to get into ‘I’m taking care of kids,’ and what that means.

I like to go to the subway and hear what people are thinking and feeling and what their concerns are. You learn so much that way. You really do.

I came out at 17.

It’s tough to be a mother. At any age. It’s tough. It’s a lot of work.