“Somehow, someway, for some people there's an automatic assumption that...” — Michael Nutter Quote

Somehow, someway, for some people there's an automatic assumption that a mayor who is African-American or some other elected official has to support another African-American.

The computer is your passport, not only to the future but to knowing what's going around you.

To succeed in big-city politics requires a powerful, motivating vision of a better world, a plan to get there, a willingness to meet constituents on their terms, and a tough political skin.

If you want to act like a butthead, your butt is going to get locked up.

You know, public service is serious enough on its own, and what I've found is if you take yourself take yourself too seriously in this business, you'll lose sight of what it is that you're trying to get done. So I mean I've tried to have the proper mix of being a serious public servant, but also still being a regular guy.

I would like to see more African-American singers as part of our opera companies. If you take music and the arts out of the public schools, then you're going to lose a lot of people that you might have discovered were talented, very early.

I like ambiguity because you may be the villain in someone else's story and the hero in your own, and I think very often, African-American characters are either one thing or the other. You shouldn't have to be perfectly good or perfectly bad. You don't even have to be magical.

My dad's entire business and enterprises have been about helping the African-American community.

I'm a kid who grew up in an all African-American neighborhood and got into schools and aspired to just be me, and didn't worry about labels or anything. Just wanted to be a success at what I did.