Pete Buttigieg Quotes

When all you have is a hammer, everything starts to look like a culture war.

I was well into adulthood before I was prepared to acknowledge the simple fact that I am gay. It took years of struggle and growth for me to recognize that it’s just a fact of life, like having brown hair, and part of who I am. Putting something this personal on the pages of a newspaper does not come easy. We Midwesterners are instinctively private to begin with, and I’m not used to viewing this as anyone else’s business. But it’s clear to me that at a moment like this, being more open about it could do some good.

Part of how you can win and deserve to win is to know what’s worth more to you than winning.

Then I would jump on a streetcar, along tram lines since torn out, and let it carry me into the West Side, to step off in a neighborhood and wander into a bakery full of East European delights or a tavern where people were swilling Drewrys beer and speaking the language of the old country.

I think the dialogue has gotten so caught up on where you draw the line that we've gotten away from the fundamental question of who gets to draw the line. And I trust women to draw the line.

Politics at its worst is ugly, but politics at its best is magnificent. Because it's not just about policy. It is soulcraft and it is moral.

I had a professional background in economic development and was fluent in the language of business - even while having fought and bled politically for organized labor in the auto industry.

Life is short, and we do not have much time to gladden the hearts of those who travel with us; so be quick to love, make haste to be kind, and go in peace to follow the good road of blessing.

It is easier to be cruel, or unfair, to people in groups and in the abstract; harder to do so toward a specific person in your midst, especially if you know them already.

Military service used to be something that we had in common. It’s where people like a young John F Kennedy would meet farm kids and would work side by side with African Americans, maybe for the first time in their lives. At the time [in 2009] it felt like the reverse. It felt like it reinforced the divides.

The purpose of the presidency is not the glorification of the president. It is the unification of the American people.

And there is the note from Sherri that I found in my room while getting ready, rolled up in a 'best son-in-law ever' coffee mug, welcoming me to the family and ending, 'Take care of my baby, he may be on a permanent loan to you but he will always be mine.

playing to an audience’s distrust of others, you can more quickly secure their trust in you.

you would have matured enough to realize you were the recipient of a kindness, the treatment that is instinctual to a politician who knows that you will be best to work with if you have first been made to feel good about yourself.

A new attitude has swept American politics. Candidates have discovered that is easier to be elected by not offending anyone rather than by impressing the voters. Politicians are rushing for the center, careful not to stick their necks out on issues. Most Democrats shy away from the word “liberal” like a horrid accusation.