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When I said the city would be stronger, I didn't know that. I just hoped it. There are parts of you that say, 'Maybe we're not going to get through this.' You don't listen to them.

There are people in whole parts of our cities who are being totally left behind and disregarded. They are unheard. They are told they are unneeded by this economy. And that extreme poverty breeds conditions for extreme violence.

Towns are suffering from all these things, we should unite until we are all satisfied, man cannot be killing each other as if we were animals, as if we had no culture; that is a lack of culture.

We need to do something about the culture of violence.

We have to change the culture of mass violence we have.

There is nothing here that's broken that can't be fixed, but it won't happen on its own. It's going to require a huge lift by the entire country of the United States of America and people on the ground taking personal responsibility for themselves. You cannot take it as a fait accompli that the city's going to come back.

The people of our city are holding on by a thread. Time has run out. Can we survive another night? And who can we depend on? Only God knows.

We all agreed that violence begets violence, and you can't solve issues with more violence.

As a city, we have to face the reality that New York's minority communities experience a disproportionate share of violent crime.