Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

"Change takes courage."

"For me, democratic socialism is about - really, the value for me is that I believe that in a modern, moral, and wealthy society, no person in America should be too poor to live."

"Healthcare as a human right, it means that every child, no matter where you are born, should have access to a college or trade-school education if they so choose it, and I think no person should be homeless if we can have public structures and public policy to allow for people to have homes and food and lead a dignified life in the United States."

"I believe that every American should have stable, dignified housing; health care; education - that the most very basic needs to sustain modern life should be guaranteed in a moral society."

"I see people like me, who thought someone like me couldn't be in politics, now are saying, 'Oh, wait, I don't need to take money from corporations to run. Maybe I'll run, too.'"

"I was born to a dad who was born in the South Bronx while the Bronx was burning, while landlords were committing arson to their own buildings."

"I wasn't born to a wealthy or powerful family - mother from Puerto Rico, dad from the South Bronx."

"It's time we acknowledge that not all Democrats are the same. That a Democrat who takes corporate money, profits off foreclosure, doesn't live here, doesn't send his kids to our schools, doesn't drink our water or breathe our air cannot possibly represent us."

"Mentors of mine were under a big pressure to minimize their femininity to make it. I'm not going to do that. That takes away my power. I'm not going to compromise who I am."

"Our democracy is designed to speak truth to power."

"The idea that we're going to austerity ourselves into prosperity is so mistaken, and honestly, I feel like one of the big problems we have is that, because Democrats don't have a deep understanding of or degrees in economics, they allow Wall Street folks to roll in the door and think that they're giving them an education."

"The way the Queens Democratic party machine has worked, they operate on a politics of exclusion."

"To me, what socialism means is to guarantee a basic level of dignity. It's asserting the value of saying that the America we want and the America that we are proud of is one in which all children can access a dignified education. It's one in which no person is too poor to have the medicines they need to live."

"Women like me aren't supposed to run for office."