Quotes from Julian Castro

If you're willing to work hard and play by the rules, you should be able to move up.

Of all the fictions we heard last week in Tampa, the one I find most troubling is this: If we all just go our own way, our nation will be stronger for it. Because if we sever the threads that connect us, the only people who will go far are those who are already ahead.

I'm a recovering politician.

I believe that Secretary Clinton has said, has acknowledged, that that was not the best way to handle her emails back then... and has turned over all of the information and the emails and documents and now the server.

My People First Education plan includes universal pre-K for 3- and 4-year-olds, because the research is very clear that if you have a dollar to spend in education, it's best spent early on with high-quality pre-K so that kids can get off to a strong start.

My grandmother spent her whole life working as a maid, a cook and a babysitter, barely scraping by, but still working hard to give my mother, her only child, a chance in life, so that my mother could give my brother and me an even better one.

I am going out there working hard every day making sure people know that my vision is a compelling one for my country, that I have the experience and that I can win against Donald Trump.

At the same time, it's people that are employed - many folks - but they're still not earning enough to get into the middle class.

There's always a little bit of disappointment. At the same time, number one, [Hillary Clinton] made a great choice. Secondly, I'm 41. And so I feel like - that I'm excited about the years to come.

Hispanics have been among the biggest beneficiaries of the Affordable Care Act.

Hopefully, in not a too distant future, we will see a Latino president, and who knows how's that going to happen. It's just a matter of time.

Opportunity today, prosperity tomorrow.

My grandmother's generation and generations before always saw beyond the horizons of their own lives and their own circumstances. They believed that opportunity created today would lead to prosperity tomorrow.

Now, in Texas, we believe in the rugged individual. Texas may be the one place where people actually still have bootstraps, and we expect folks to pull themselves up by them. But we also recognize there are some things we can't do alone. We have to come together and invest in opportunity today for prosperity tomorrow.

Seven presidents before him - Democrats and Republicans - tried to expand health care to all Americans. President Obama got it done.

Republicans are so far out to the right, it's pushing people into the Democratic Party.

In my plan, I call for breaking up ICE and returning its enforcement functions to the Department of Justice.

I can understand the value of the immigrant experience and that we have become the nation that we are because people like my grandmother were able to make a life in this country.

Growing up, when we would get dragged to these events, I didn't want to be there. Over time, as we got older, I developed a real appreciation of the importance of being involved in the democratic process.

There has been a great challenge in improving educational achievement. It's a long-term issue, not a short-term one. It includes everything from getting more parents involved to addressing issues of poverty and improving what happens in the classroom.

I consider myself a pretty progressive person, and I think I have a track record that shows that. But I'm also not just going to do a policy because it's the liberal thing to do.

I do think we need to hold countries accountable who violate trade agreements that are already in place. We need to get stronger about enforcement, that in the future if we strike a trade agreement, toughening up labor standards and environmental standards and enforcement standards is something we absolutely need to do.

When it comes to letting people marry whomever they love, Mitt Romney says, "No."

I see myself as a bridge-builder who can understand both sides.