Quotes from Wendy Davis

I hope telling the story of how I went from being a single mom to serving in the Texas State Senate to running for governor will remind others that with the right leadership in government, where you start has nothing to do with how far you go.

Texas is not really a red state - it's just a non-voting state.

Texas really is the greatest state in the greatest nation. Texans - and women all over the country - deserve leaders that care, that listen, and that work to protect their interests.

While Texas women have the right to safe, legal abortion, in reality there are already very few facilities in Texas to provide this essential care. In 2008, 92 percent of Texas counties had no abortion provider.

I'm not an overnight sensation. I'm a Texan. And I'm a Texas success story. I am the epitome of hard work and optimism.

I care about life and I have a record of fighting for people above all else.

I am proud of where I came from, and I am proud of what I've been able to achieve through hard work and perseverance. And I guarantee you that anyone who tries to say otherwise hasn't walked a day in my shoes.

Enough to using Texas as a political laboratory for testing far-right ideas. Enough to using Texas as a workshop for fattening the wallets of their special interest friends and supporters. And enough of politicians listening only to each other, rather than real Texans.

Texas has waited too long for a governor who knows that quid pro quo shouldn't be the status quo. It's time for a governor who believes that you don't have to buy a place in Texas' future.

It's my strong belief that when people love each other and are desirous of creating a committed relationship with each other that they should be allowed to marry, regardless of their sexual orientation.

I've never worried about payback. People are hungry for leadership that's not afraid of political consequence.

When I first put my hat in the ring, several very tried and true and loyal Democratic activists from our community said, 'What? She's not a Democrat. She's a Republican.' I took that as a compliment, you know, that people didn't necessarily know what my ideology might be because I wasn't driven by that.

A tree fell on Greg Abbott - he sued and got millions.

If I were governor, and a bill came to my desk that provided for background checks at gun shows, I would sign that.

Harvard was the most intimidating experience. I felt so out of my league there.

Mine is a story about a teenage single mother who struggled to keep her young family afloat. It's a story about a young woman who was given a precious opportunity to work her way up in the world. It's a story about resiliency, and sacrifice, and perseverance. And you're damn right it's a true story.

The truth is that at age 19, I was a teenage mother living alone with my daughter in a trailer and struggling to keep us afloat on my way to a divorce. And I knew then that I was going to have to work my way up and out of that life if I was going to give my daughter a better life and a better future, and that's what I've done.

It's great to talk about how good things are now. But we can't sit on our laurels and expect that our time will sustain itself if we don't do a better job on issues like education... It's absolutely the case that the low cost of college tuition that I was able to enjoy and the financial aid I was able to receive made my education possible.

Texas deserves a leader who understands that making education a priority creates good jobs for Texans and keeps Texas on top.

Let's make sure that we don't close down 37 of the 42 clinics in Texas and leave women with nowhere to go and put them in a situation where their health will be at risk, because what we do know is that closing down the ability to access that service unfortunately does not take the need away or women's confronting that issue away.

I pursued education not instead of being a good mother, but because being a good mother required that I build a better life for my family.

We spend our lives trying to fill the empty places in our souls that love never got to, where there wasn't enough water to reach our roots; its those deficits that often have the biggest impacts on us and that shape us the most. Whatever the void created in those early formative years, I think it's part of who I became as an adult

We spend our lives trying to fill the empty places in our souls that lobe never got to, where there wasn't enough water to reach our roots; its those deficits that often have the biggest impacts on us and that shape us the most. Whatever the void created in those early formative years, I think it's part of who I became as an adult

Nature abhors a vacuum, and so, I think, do children. When an important person leaves, you try to fill the emptiness with other people, to glue the broken pieces together.