Edward Brooke

“My fervent expectation is that sooner rather than later, the United States Senate will more closely reflect the rich diversity of this great country.”

“I've never tried to run away from my race. I was born a black man. You know that in your bones as soon as you are able to understand this country... My approach to life about race is, I don't see the difference between black people and white people.”

“I am not a civil rights leader, and I don't profess to be one.”

“I always believed there would be an African-American president. It was something I'd dreamed about, thought about, but certainly did not believe would happen in my lifetime.”

“I chose the Republican Party early on in the 1950s and 1960s in Massachusetts. My father was a Republican, as was my mother, in Virginia.”

“Intemperance and intolerance serve no one, and hatred guarantees failure.”

“I had male breast cancer and had dual radical modified mastectomy, and I've spent a lot of time working with the Susan G. Komen foundation to make men aware of male breast cancer - if you have breast tissue, you can have breast cancer.”

“Fred Thompson was a law partner of mine.”

“I don't intend to leave the Republican Party, but I would like to move the Republican Party more to the center.”

“I wanted to go to Washington to bring people together who had never been together before. I wanted to break down the barriers between races.”

“In my state, the Republican Party was the most progressive party.”

“Richard Nixon was a very complex man. I don't think he was a conservative, nor liberal, not even a moderate. He was a pragmatic politician. He loved politics.”

“When I left the Senate in 1979, there were several publishers who had approached me about writing an autobiography, and I knew that politicians write books for many reasons, but at that time, I just thought I wasn't ready and my story wasn't over, and I knew I had a new life ahead of me.”

“You can't say the Negro left the Republican Party; the Negro feels he was evicted from the Republican Party.”

“The polarization of Congress; the decline of civility; and the rise of attack politics in the 1980s, the 1990s, and the early years of the new century are a blot on our political system and a disservice to the American people.”

“Politics is not a tea party. When it is time to act, you have to move fast and decisively.”

“I grew up segregated, but there was not much feeling of being shut out of anything.”

“I had made my reputation on integrity.”

“I want to be elected on my own ability. Only then do you have progress... People should not use race as a basis for labelling me.”

“I'm looking for the best person irregardless of political party, of race or religion, or color of their skin. Those things don't matter to me. I want someone who's qualified, who has a qualification to character and the integrity to do the things that have to be done to save this world.”