Politician

If I'm plowing the snow and filling in potholes, then I'm a good mayor, and if we fail to do that, I'm not. And it's got almost nothing to do with whether, when I come home, it's to a husband or to a wife.

My surname, Buttigieg (Boot-edge-edge), is very common in my father's country of origin, the tiny island of Malta, and nowhere else.

So much of politics is about people's relationships with themselves. You do better if you make people feel secure in who they are.

My marriage to Chasten has made me a better man.

The center of gravity of the American people is way to the left of the center of gravity of Congress and, in many ways, to the left of the national Democratic Party.

Building a wall won't solve our border security challenges.

The decision to serve needs to be independent of your politics.

In my generation, thankfully, as somebody who served in the Afghanistan War, would have served in the Iraq War, if called to do so - was also strongly against the Iraq War, from the beginning - I'm so thankful that we live in a moment that we can honor the troops separately from policy.

'Freedom' means a lot to conservatives, but they have such a narrow sense of what it means. They think a lot about freedom from - freedom from government, freedom from regulation - and precious little about freedom to. Freedom to is absolutely something that has to be safeguarded by good government, just as it could be impaired by bad government.

We can't look for greatness in the past.

The force that has come closest across American history to actually ending America was white supremacy. That was the Civil War.

As the mayor of South Bend, Indiana, I see on a daily basis the impact of politics and policy on my family, neighbors, friends, and residents.

What's worse: a president who is very faithful to an ideology that you find extreme, or a president who is very cynical and appears to have no ideology at all? Neither one of those things is great.

I think people in our party tie themselves up in pretzels trying to be more electable.

A message is something that makes sense no matter who you're running against.

I just feel more comfortable with my sleeves rolled up.

You can't understand America without understanding the Puritans. In many ways, we're still living out their legacy in ways that are good and bad.

Tearing apart a community, a business, and a family will make America worse off, every time.

We need to intentionally invest in health, in home ownership, in entrepreneurship, in access to democracy, in economic empowerment. If we don't do these things, we shouldn't be surprised that racial inequality persists because inequalities compound.

People in communities like Granger, Indiana, are rarely heard from on cable networks. But they, too, believe it is wrong to deport friends and neighbors who do no harm and much good.