Quotes from Deval Patrick

I don't want to be a senator.

My most vivid memory of my father centers on the day he left. It was warm, and my mother was especially short with Rhonda and me that afternoon, which I attributed to the heat. I was oblivious to the mounting hostilities in our basement apartment.

In the view of some people, you can only believe in civil rights if you work as a civil rights lawyer. I just don't buy that.

One great thing about being a black man is that if you put on a hat, you can move around unnoticed.

We have drained common sense out of our politics. The more we focus on tactics and games, the more good people check out and give up

I view the experiences that I have had - both the tough ones and the pleasant ones - as gifts.

I view the experiences that I have had - both tough ones and the pleasant ones - as gifts. They've been full of lessons. And I've learned to be open to those lessons.

People read inevitability as entitlement, and the American people want their candidates to sweat for the job. They want them to actually make a case for the job.

Mitt Romney talks a lot about all the things he's fixed. I can tell you that Massachusetts wasn't one of them. He's a fine fellow and a great salesman, but as governor he was more interested in having the job than doing it.

I grew up on the south side of Chicago, most of that time on welfare. My mother and sister and I used to live with my grandparents and various cousins. We shared a two-bedroom tenement, and the three of us slept in one of those bedrooms and had a set of bunk beds.

My grandma forbid us from describing ourselves as poor. She said, 'we're broke.' Because broke is temporary.

I went to big, broken, under-resourced public schools, but we had a real sense of community, because those were days in the '50s and the '60s when every child was under the jurisdiction of every single adult on the block.

I'd like to have another opportunity to serve. I believe in service. I enjoy it. I also like coming and going, you know, because I think that my private-sector life has contributed to how I think about public-sector challenges and what I do in the public sector.

I've fixed hard problems of all kinds, civil rights and business problems. It's the stuff I like to do, and I'm good at it, as a matter of fact... and I never left my conscience at the door.

The summer before my third year of law school, I worked at a law firm in Washington, D.C. I turned 25 that July, and on my birthday, my father happened to be playing in a local jazz club called Pigfoot and invited me to join him. I hadn't spent a birthday with him since I was 3, but I agreed.

This is a horrific day in Boston. My thoughts and prayers are with those who have been injured.

It's time for democrats to grow a backbone and stand up for what we believe.

I have never taken a job or done a job where I felt I needed to leave my conscience at the door. One of the the great things about not being in politics as a career is that I can do this job without thinking about my career. I can think about what we're trying to do, what we're trying to accomplish and what we're trying to leave.

I have never taken a job or done a job where I felt I needed to leave my conscience at the door. One of the great things about not being in politics as a career is that I can do this job without thinking about my career. I can think about what we're trying to do, what we're trying to accomplish and what we're trying to leave.

I think that hope, that ability to envision, to imagine a better way, and then to apply yourself to it, is the way to climb out of a hole, is the way to build a better life, is the way to build a better community and a better country.

A great teacher who is full of excitement and love for her students can make all the difference in their lives.

We need a government that is what we are at our best. Smart, efficient, pragmatic and compassionate.

I do identify with St. Patrick, not just in name. He drove the snakes out of Ireland. I intend to drive the snakes out of the State House.

If you are ever going to move beyond where you stand at that moment you have to conjure a picture in your head of where you want to go.