Quotes by Mazie Hirono

The Trump administration gives me so many more opportunities to be verbal and vocal.

It's clear that health care is a concern for people all across the country regardless of their political stripe or where they live.

Sarah Huckabee Sanders lies on a regular basis.

At a pretty young age, I wanted to do something with my life that would help people. I've been that way for quite a while.

Until I got to the nomination of Judge Gorsuch and so much preparation time, I really wasn't familiar with the blue-slip process. But it's time-honored.

Sen. Akaka's care, empathy and compassion were evident to everyone who knew him.

When I'm at home, I eat kimchi every single day.

The millions of people in our country with severe health-care needs needed to know that many of us in the House and Senate have those kinds of concerns, too.

Protecting Medicare and Social Security, health care, workers' rights, and a woman's right to choose remain top priorities for me.

It is amazing how our natural areas can change over our lifetimes.

My husband is half Korean.

I was born at home in rural Japan.

It's worth remembering that immigrants come to this country to work, they don't come to get handouts.

I am fighting kidney cancer. And I'm just so grateful that I had health insurance so that I could concentrate on the care that I needed rather than how the heck I was going to afford the care that was going to probably save my life.

In Hawaii, we understand that our way of life depends on a healthy ocean.

I'm grateful for the support I'm receiving from the people of Hawaii.

In Hawaii we understand why it is important to malama, or take care of, our land, ocean, and air -- our way of life depends on it.

Our military's presence in Hawaii not only plays a critical role in our national security but also in driving our state's economy and supporting thousands of jobs in the public and private sectors.

I will work hard to ensure Hawaii's strategic position in our national security remains strong.

That used to be one of my greatest fears growing up: my mom would get sick and then she wouldn't be able to go to work and then there is no food or money for rent.

Nobody is entitled to a promotion to the Supreme Court.

I know our country can remain forward-thinking by ensuring young women and minorities are given equal opportunity.

We work really hard to get elected.

That makes a difference when you have all these Asian faces running then getting elected. You have some 30 people, many of them Democrats, running for Congress. When the community sees the other faces who look like them can run and win, I think it encourages them.

Blue slips enable home-state senators to ensure that the federal judges serving in their states are highly qualified.

There are people in our country, in our communities who are being marginalized and discriminated against every single day. I fight for them.

There are people getting screwed in our country every single second, minute, hour of the day. And if by our work, we can decrease that number, we'll make a difference; we'll be doing our jobs.

I always saw my mother just making decisions that helped our family. It was much later when I realized how courageous she really was, and I came to understand what a risk-taker she was. That's very much a part of how I am.

I've been very open about my health challenge because I think it's really important to let my constituents know that in spite of the fact that I am still in treatment, nothing about this treatment prevents me from doing my job.

Graham-Cassidy treats health care as a commodity that can be bought and sold.

Don't talk to me about civility when you're separating families at the border.

We need to have comprehensive immigration reform and that means there should be a path for citizenship. And certainly I support the DREAM Act to help all of these young people who were brought here.

Claims of anti-conservative bias in the tech industry are baseless.

Gee, I wish that life were so black and white that you can't think of a single person who, you know, a good person who has done bad things.

Good people do bad things.

I lived out in the Koko Head area as a kid, when it was all farms. We would walk over that mountain into Hanauma Bay almost every day.

I would never criticize a judge just because he or she presides in another state, including Alabama.

Going through economic hard times is something I know firsthand.

Clearly, there is a growing market for affordable, abundant and sustainable energy. Industry is working to meet the needs of this market, and in the process is creating jobs, technologies and industries in states across the country.

I wanted to be a counselor or social worker. That's one of the reasons I was a psychology major.

The thing about immigrants is the people who come to this country with that kind of drive? They are risk-takers. And we need risk-takers who want to improve their lives, create jobs and do those things that add to the dynamism of our economy.

We should all be treating each other like human beings.

I was almost 8 when my mother bravely brought her children to this country so we could have a chance at a better life.

Diversifying our energy sources will create jobs, improve our national security and lay the foundation for a strong, sustainable economy in the future.

It is clear that our national security and economic growth are tied to affordable, abundant energy sources.

Like my fellow citizens in Hawaii, I am a proud American.

I lost a sister to pneumonia, when she was 2 years old. She died at home, not in a hospital, where maybe her life could have been saved.

Hawaii -- the Aloha state -- is built on the strength of its multicultural society, from our indigenous Native Hawaiian people to the many immigrants that followed.

I was in sixth grade at Koko Head Elementary School in Honolulu, and was chosen to pin the 50th star on the American flag in front of my teachers and classmates at a special assembly to celebrate statehood.

Trump is a major motivation to be speaking out because I so disagree with some of the things that he decides on, and you notice there's a lawsuit on just about everything he does? My gosh.

Instead of working to undo POTUS exec action, we need to workcollaboratively to achieve comprehensive immigration reform.

America must not abdicate its global leadership role in the climate crisis to countries like China.

If I had to wait around for somebody to pick me for lieutenant governor, I never would have been picked.

There is no future without all of us -- black, brown and white -- coming together.

We don't need another nuclear arms race to proceed a pace and then to encourage other countries to become very, to develop these kinds of capabilities also. This is not what we need.

I hope that my uniquely American journey can help pave the way for others, especially women, to step into their own immense power.

We all know that the earlier cancer is detected the more successful treatment will be, and my cancer had spread to my ribs and that was a very fast-growing cancer.

I got involved in the political arena in college, protesting the Vietnam War, and became friends with some of the activists at the University of Hawaii.

There are certain things that should remain forever pristine in your memory, and that's how I look at Hanauma.

I did not want the #MeToo movement to be swept under the rug.

Women are socialized to be very nice and put up with a lot of things.

Our country is made up of groups of immigrants who came here hoping for a better life. They created America. It's a sad thing to have so many people not remember that, including Trump.

One of my favorite Japanese foods is called natto. It's fermented soybeans. I grew up in Japan eating natto. It's definitely an acquired taste. It's basically smelly.

Opinion is not slander.

The defense to slander is the truth, and sometimes the truth hurts.

The House GOP continues to fail to address the real and serious issues thatthousands of families face each day.

Both political parties should be able to support the idea that taxpayers who are lawfully present, working, and paying taxes should be able to use the programs their tax dollars pay for -- it is only fair.

We should not forget what it felt like to watch Dr. Christine Blasey Ford testify, and what it meant to so many of us.

Browbeating the tech industry for a problem that does not exist also draws attention away from the real problems with Google and other tech companies.

The undocumented should pay penalties for the laws they broke by coming here, but we should remember that the founding fathers were willing to break up an empire to achieve their dreams.

To me, Stephen Miller is like Iago whispering in the president's ear, along with John Kelly. These people are totally anti-immigrant.

When we in Congress set the terms under which immigrants in this country must live, we wield a power that is checked primarily by our individual sense of fairness: the power to set taxes and make laws that apply to people who do not have representation.

Most of us look forward to the start of a new year as a clean slate. We reflect on the past 12 months, take stock of where we are, and make new resolutions about how to improve in the coming year.

That is the great thing about Hawaii. We're so culturally diverse and we inner-marry and appreciate each other's cultures.

The passing of my friend and a great American hero, Dan Inouye, is a major loss for the country and Hawaii. But the people of Hawaii are strong and we will persevere.