Quotes from Beto O'Rourke

There were absolutely times in my life when I tried to get people to call me Robert.

End racial and ethnic gerrymandering, stop voter I.D. laws that seek to suppress voters of color, and make sure everyone can add their voice and their vote to this great democracy.

You have to tell the people that you want to serve what it is you believe and what you are going to do on their behalf.

The bottom line is that I'm very, very proud of my mom.

We in El Paso and Juarez are literally one community. There's no separation; there's no DMZ; there's no buffer.

It's nuts to me that people want to take a picture with me or want to tell me a story about their family. If they want to give it to me, I'll always take it. It's never intrusive.

Part of the job for me and others from El Paso who live along the border is to dispel the myths about how supposedly dangerous the border is.

El Paso in many ways is the Ellis Island for Mexico and much of Latin America.

We cannot sacrifice our humanity in the name of security - or we risk losing both.

I think corporations should be asked to pay a greater share into the success of this country.

As a white man who has had privileges that others could not depend on or take for granted, I've clearly had advantages over the course of my life.

The world wants to know - is the future a democratic one or an autocratic one? And I want to make sure that the United States leads on that, clearly that it's democratic.

I think for some, the very wealthiest among us, for corporations, taxes are too low.

Politics has become very corporate. There's a whole farm system for the teams. There's decisions made at the top. There's a lot of literal corporate involvement, PAC money involved in selecting and backing candidates.

The government at all levels is overly represented by white men. That's part of the problem, and I'm a white man.

I think competition always produces better results than a monopoly.

We can either be governed by fear - fear of immigrants, fear of Muslims, call the press the enemy of the people, tear kids away from their parents at the U.S.-Mexico border - or we can be governed by our ambitions and our aspirations and our desire to make the most out of all of us. And that's America at its best.

The border is safe; it's secure. El Paso is the safest city in America. Let's own that. Let's be proud of that. And then, I think, good policy can follow from that, better outcomes included.

Not one of the 9/11 terrorists entered through Mexico - and yet Mexicans bore the brunt of this country's immigration response to the terror attacks.

There was something punk rock about Bobby Kennedy not going where the pollsters said or where consultants said. He was unmoored from what was safe or easy.

With all due respect to Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer, neither of them understand Texas, nor do they understand the U.S.-Mexico border.

I was born in '72, and my dad was county judge of El Paso from '82 to '86. He was just as independent as he could be, and had an amazing joy in life and in being with people, which, from my perspective as a kid, was that he was always going to do the right thing, and damn the consequences - political or otherwise.

I have to convince other Democrats and Republicans that it's wise to invest in the U.S.-Mexico border, not just for security, but also for mobility and trade, and that's why we should open up the border.

I don't know how old I was when I first started going to shows, maybe 14 or 15, but very quickly, I discovered Dischord Records in D.C. and loved all the music on that catalog. I was a big Rites of Spring fan, Minor Threat, of course.