Lori Lightfoot

“I am not opposed to video gambling as long as it is properly regulated and regulators are diligent about keeping bad actors from having any involvement with the industry.”

“There's things that you can learn by being in the room with people that's different than talking to them over the phone or reading a policy paper.”

“For more than two decades Chicagoans have routinely traveled to neighboring cities like Rosemont, Elgin, Joliet, Gary and Hammond to gamble. If people in Chicago want to gamble, then they should be able to gamble in Chicago at a city-owned, land-based casino.”

“My mother is a fascinating person.”

“My view is I should have been Miss Massillonian, and I wasn't. I think the reason I wasn't was because I was black. Frankly, I was told later I should have been. But they were afraid if they elected a black girl as Miss Massillonian, it would have been a scandal.”

“In Massillon, you either hated football, or you loved it. On a Friday night in the fall, I don't know what anybody did if they weren't at, quote-unquote, 'The Game.'”

“When I hear stories about the number of kids that have been lost to violence, where families grow up teaching kids 'duck and cover' long before they learn their ABC's or their colors, I know there is something profoundly wrong in our city.”

“I can't look into the crystal ball. All I can do is the here and now.”

“Police can't be successful if they're not viewed as legitimate by the community, and a community will not be safe if the police are not engaged in a respectful, constitutional partnership with the community.”

“People feel like city government is corrupt. They feel like it doesn't work unless you have clout.”

“But there are parents out there who feel like they have been shut out from the process of how their children are educated, and that's never a good thing.”

“The whole circus surrounding Ed Burke, I knew immediately from my days as a federal prosecutor, was very, very serious.”

“I think about my parents, and I think a lot about the sacrifices they have made.”

“I've wanted to be a parent for a really long time, and I'm going to make sure I'm doing everything I can to be present in her life, to be her mother. I don't want to be absent from her life.”

“You know, when you get the White House operator and they say, 'Just a moment for the president of the United States,' that's a pretty heady moment.”

“I live in a world in which I have a very, very diverse group of friends.”

“Both my brothers played football. My mother had season tickets as a school board member. I was in the band, my sister was in the band. The thing was, the unifying civic activity was obsession over high school football.”

“Our children... deserve to grow up in an environment where fear is not their constant companion. And I'm determined to do everything I can to make sure every kid - in every neighborhood regardless of zip code, economic status and race or ethnicity - is able to live a life of safety.”

“I'm an ardent feminist.”

“Retired public service workers make up the backbone of the middle class in so many of our communities.”