Michael Nutter

“Mayors are leaders, doers. We get things done, and we are moving America's cities forward.”

“We're all in this together. I learned that lesson growing up in West Philly. When I shoveled the sidewalk my parents didn't let me stop with our house. They told me to keep shoveling all the way to the corner. I had a responsibility to my community.”

“Philadelphians are a gritty, tough people who will help you when you're down.”

“There is no Democratic or Republican way to fill a pothole.”

“You know, public service is serious enough on its own, and what I've found is if you take yourself take yourself too seriously in this business, you'll lose sight of what it is that you're trying to get done. So I mean I've tried to have the proper mix of being a serious public servant, but also still being a regular guy.”

“The federal government... knows how to put a missile in someone's room half way around the world with technology. Why don't we use some of that technology to save some lives here in America?”

“You can't really escape the fact that more reasonable gun regulations and procedures need to be in place, a strengthening and tightening of the national background check system. I don't know why any civilian would ever be able to purchase an assault weapon or the parts that go with it.”

“The computer is your passport, not only to the future but to knowing what's going around you.”

“I think that when we have a better educated society, when there is less violence in our cities, when people get back into the workforce and have the opportunity to take care of themselves and their families - that for me really is the kind of success and the kind of America that I think most of us still want, we aspire to.”

“We need sensible gun safety measures. The federal government could do something about this; they could show up.”

“A father is a person who's around, participating in a child's life. He's a teacher who helps to guide and shape and mold that young person, someone for that young person to talk to, to share with, their ups and their downs, their fears and their concerns.”

“Philly is a place where people love change as long as things stay the same for them.”

“For those of us in the political business, generally, it's been pretty much an unwritten but understood rule that family and children are out of bounds, that you don't attack someone's family.”

“To succeed in big-city politics requires a powerful, motivating vision of a better world, a plan to get there, a willingness to meet constituents on their terms, and a tough political skin.”

“What the mayors care about is, 'How can I get money to invest in the infrastructure in my city? How do we put people back to work, lower the unemployment rate, provide for job training programs? How do we make class sizes smaller and make investments in our children from an education standpoint?'”

“If you want to act like a butthead, your butt is going to get locked up.”

“Parents who neglect their children, who don't know where they are, who don't know what they're doing, who don't know who they're hanging out with, you're gonna find yourselves spending some quality time with your kids, in jail, together.”

“We are serious about our music here in Philadelphia, and jazz has meant a lot to this city.”

“In Philadelphia, our public safety, poverty reduction, health and economic development all start with education. We can't grow the middle class if we don't give our kids the tools they need to innovate and invent.”