Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Me, I was waiting tables of 13 and married at 19. I graduated from public schools, and taught elementary school.
The Postal Service is huge - employing more than a half million people - and its history is long and complicated.
I think a lot of Americans are not sure which side Washington is on: the side of banks or the side of the people.
I was 30 before I realized, you know, that I probably was an accident. These things just suddenly hit you one day.
People feel like the system is rigged against them, and here is the painful part, they're right. The system is rigged.
Big corporations have money and power to make sure every rule breaks their way; people have voices and votes to push back.
There is one thing Anthony Weiner and I agree on: there are a lot of smart, hard-working people in the financial industry.
I'll work with anyone - and I really do mean that - Democrat, Republican, independent, Libertarian, contrarian, vegetarian.
If President Barack Obama had not been in the White House, we would not have the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau today.
It is critical that the American people, and not just their financial institutions, be represented at the negotiating table.
Citigroup has a lot of money, it spends a lot of money, and it uses that money to grow and consolidate power. And it pays off.
What I've learned is that real change is very, very hard. But I've also learned that change is possible - if you fight for it.
We shouldn't be profiting from our students who are drowning in debt while giving a great deal to the banks. That's just wrong.
If your plan is to put a product out there that people can see and understand, then by golly, we're going to get along just fine.
If there had been a Financial Product Safety Commission in place 10 years ago, the current financial crisis would have been averted.
Groupthink can become a serious issue - old ideas stay around after they're useful, and new ideas too often don't get a fair hearing.
We need to hold Wall Street accountable for issuing the kinds of deceptive loans that nearly brought our economy to its knees in 2008.
I loved teaching, but every day that I went to work, I carried the worry that I was hurting my kids because I wasn't at home with them.
Bankruptcy is about financial death and financial rebirth. Bankruptcy is the great American story rewritten. We're a nation of debtors.
When billionaire car dealers or manufacturers pay for ambassadorships, at least they pay with money earned by selling something of value.
Republicans say they don't believe in government. Sure they do. They believe in government to help themselves and their powerful friends.
People have hearts, they have kids, they get jobs, they get sick, they cry, they dance. They live, they love, and they die. And that matters.
I hear all this, you know, 'Well, this is class warfare, this is whatever.' No. There is nobody in this country who got rich on his own - nobody.
All I can say is I was a lot more discreet as a candidate than I was in real life. Can I say that? Maybe it's indiscreet to talk about discretion.
Most women file for bankruptcy in the aftermath of a serious medical problem, a job loss, or a family break up. It is hard to protect against those.
If nobody can sell mortgage-backed securities based on trillions of dollars of unpayable instruments, there's a lot less risk in the overall system.
Does anyone believe that Goldman Sachs is gonna give up a deal that would yield millions of dollars because someone fussed at them behind closed doors?
We've seen filibusters to block judicial nominations, jobs bills, political transparency, ending Big Oil subsidies - you name it, there's been a filibuster.
Early 2000s, we get Enron, which tells us the books are dirty. And what is our repeated response? We just keep pulling the threads out of the regulatory fabric.
Marathon Day in Boston and all of Massachusetts, it's Patriot's Day, and it's a big celebration for us. It's a day when we're kind of the whole world's city there.
Because policymakers often rely on think tanks' research when crafting laws and regulations, it's critical to know whether these organizations are truly independent.
Banks were once places to hold money and were very careful in lending to finance families as they built a future - bought homes, bought cars, took out student loans.
That's how we build the economy of the future. An economy with more jobs and less debt, we root it in fairness. We grow it with opportunity. And we build it together.
In America today, a young person needs more education after high school just to have a chance to make it in the middle class. Not a guarantee, just a chance to make it.
Part of my job is to make sense of all that I hear, and to retell it in a forceful way so that the decision-makers at Treasury can hear it. At least that's how I see it.
America had been a boom-and-bust economy going into the Great Depression - just over and over and over, fortunes were wiped out, ordinary families were crushed under it.
Growing up, my mother and grandparents often talked about our family's Native American heritage. As a kid, I never thought to ask them for documentation - what kid would?
And that's how we build the economy of the future. An economy with more jobs and less debt, we root it in fairness. We grow it with opportunity. And we build it together.
You didn't have to worry that marauding bands would come and seize everything in your factory and hire someone to protect against this because of the work the rest of us did.
You can't predict it all. People will tell you to plan things out as best you can. They will tell you to focus. They will tell you to follow your dreams. They will all be right.
I don't think anyone went the polls and said, 'I am casting my vote to make sure that Wall Street has better chances to make bigger profits off the backs of the American people.'
My brothers and I grew up on stories about our grandfather building one-room schoolhouses and about our grandparents' courtship and their early lives together in Indian Territory.
Unfair servicing practices can worsen a family's already difficult economic situation, and the injury echoes from the family to the community and ultimately throughout the economy.
No matter how good a deal sounds, if your name goes on the bottom line, you need to understand it and be sure you'll be able to pay. You are responsible for yourself forever. Forever.
The 21st Century Glass-Steagall Act will reestablish a wall between commercial and investment banking, make our financial system more stable and secure, and protect American families.
I can remember riding in the car with [my daughter] Amelia, when she was very small, and we'd talk about money the same way we'd talk about sparkly shoes or what had happened at school.
I grew up in a family that nearly lost everything, but I ended up in the United States Senate because I grew up in an America that invested in kids like me and built a real future for us.
There's been such a sense that there's one set of rules for trillion-dollar financial institutions and a different set for all the rest of us. It's so pervasive that it's not even hidden.
The over-representation of Wall Street banks in senior government positions sends a bad message. It tells people that one - and only one - point of view will dominate economic policymaking.
There are lots of families who - who make irresponsible purchases. There are also a lot of families who have debt on credit cards because they use those credit cards to pay for medical bills.