Christine Quinn
Christine Quinn
Christine Callaghan Quinnis an American politician. A member of the Democratic Party, she formerly served as the Speaker of the New York City Council. The third person to hold this office, she is the first female and first openly gay speaker. As City Council speaker, Quinn was New York City's third most powerful public servant, behind the mayor and public advocate. She ran to succeed Michael Bloomberg as the city's mayor in the 2013 mayoral election, but she came in...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionPolitician
Date of Birth25 July 1966
CityGlen Cove, NY
CountryUnited States of America
The library of my elementary school had this great biography section, and I read all of these paperback biographies until they were dog-eared. The story of Eleanor Roosevelt and Madame Curie and Martin Luther King and George Washington Carver and on and on and on.
I'm tough, I'm pushy, I'm really loud. I used to spend a lot of time thinking about it. But we only have so much brain capacity, so if I'm spending part of my brain thinking about how I'm acting, A, I'm not spending all of my brain doing, and B, I'm not actually in that moment.
I'm tough, and you know what? New Yorkers deserve that. They work head, they fight it out, they slug it out. And they deserve a mayor or a speaker who's going to do the same.
I want to be affirmatively proud of what I have made my way through. And to do that, in the same way I had to tell my father and my family and my friends that I was gay, I need to not hide this anymore.
As the unsung heroes of New York City, security officers should be rewarded, not penalized for keeping our buildings secure, our neighborhoods protected and everyone safe. As one of the signature landmarks in New York City, the Empire State Building should be a leader in setting standards for the private security industry.
At this point in my life, I'm not going to spend a lot of time focusing on dissatisfaction with who I am, and I'm not going to spend a lot of time tempering my personality. Whatever job I have next, I'm going to be somebody who wants to get things done.
There's not a lot of conversation going on in my world about softening my image. I'm pretty much who I am.
Things are much better organized than they ever were, ... They are using their resources more effectively and actually moving toward being no kill.
I've already begun to put pilot programs in place that give CUNY grads opportunities to get good tech jobs. We should expand on that so that New Yorkers are getting those jobs, because those jobs are probably one of the biggest 21st Century pathways into the middle class.
Sometimes I yell, sometimes I raise my voice. I am trying to do it less, because it's not always attractive. It's not always the right thing to do.
These businesses puff up their profits by not offering benefits, ... And at lunch, they give their workers an extra half hour to register on a public health insurance program.
I have big emotions, and I care deeply about delivering for New Yorkers, and sometimes that means you got to push things forward - and I think New Yorkers know that.
I don't even think they dignify a response.
My late mother was very clear to my sister and I that we were to be strong women; that we were to be effective; that we were to be heard.