2012

• Lets you and I try to live on food stamps in New Jersey (high cost of living) and feed a family for a week or month. U game?
  • Fallon, Kevin (January 26, 2013). "Cory Booker Rescues a Freezing Dog & 9 Other Things He Has Saved". The Daily Beast. Retrieved on 21 August 2018. 
    • Via Twitter, in response to a tweet asking "Why is there a family today that is ‘too poor’ to afford breakfast?" Booker would go on to do exactly that. He later told CBS that it had been a "terrible state of human existence", and continued "I'll be honest with you. I take so much for granted, even going to Starbucks and buying a cup of coffee is more than my daily food allowance right now," as quoted in Bailey, Holly (December 11, 2012). "Cory Booker’s week on food stamps: political ambition amid the burned sweet potatoes". Yahoo! News. Retrieved on 21 August 2018. 

2013

• The reality is we have to make sure that we have a military that’s prepared, but right now, we have more military spending than the next 10, 11, 12 countries combined, and we’ve got to start realizing that we can secure and protect ourselves, but also be responsible in the way that we do that," Booker said. And it’s not unpatriotic to say that we’re spending too much money. In fact, to me, that’s the patriotic thing to say.
  • From Real Time with Bill Maher, as quoted in Cory Booker says U.S. military spending is greater than the next 10-12 countries combined. PolitiFact (February 10th, 2013). Retrieved on 21 August 2018.
• We are brick city. We are like bricks themselves. We are strong. We are resilient. We are enduring.
  • When Cory’s gone. The Economist (August 17, 2013). Retrieved on 21 August 2018.

2014

Most people think that these high-density poor neighborhoods, predominately people of color, just came about through some accident of history, but they were the conscious creation [of institutional racism].

• Immediately I knew that was problematic [being paired on a television show with John Lewis]. Because the show starts with our bios, and it starts with, ‘John Lewis, hero of the civil rights movement stood on the Edmund Pettus Bridge. … He literally bled the southern soil red. And then it goes to me. ‘Cory Booker, riding his Big Wheel in affluent suburbia, falls off and skins his knee: He bled the New Jersey soil red.’ And so you are very aware if you were born after the civil rights movement, if you were born in my generation, that you stand on the shoulders of giants.
  • Kopan, Tal (February 26, 2014). "Black senators eye future generation". Politico. Retrieved on 21 August 2018. 
• We prove worthy of the privileges that we have not by paying anything back, but by paying it forward.
  • Kopan, Tal (February 26, 2014). "Black senators eye future generation". Politico. Retrieved on 21 August 2018. 
• I want to try to live my own values as consciously and purposefully as I can. Being vegan for me is a cleaner way of not participating in practices that don’t align with my values. … As soon as I said publicly that I was trying this experiment, so many vegans out there, hundreds and hundreds of people, have been reaching out to me with incredible support and encouragement as well as practical tips of how to do this without having to sacrifice that much in terms of the food and what I like. I've discovered some really delicious things—recipes, stores, and restaurants—that have made this transition far easier. … There's too much judgment out there. Really what we need to be doing is just all of us finding our own paths towards living the best lives we can live as clearly and boldly in accordance with our own personal values.
  • "Talking Tofurky With Newly Vegan Cory Booker", interview with Vlad Chituc, in The Daily Beast (26 November 2014)

2016

• Cynicism about America’s current state of affairs is ultimately a form of surrender.
  • In Booker, Cory (2017). United: Thoughts on Finding Common Ground and Advancing the Common Good. Random House Publishing Group. ISBN 978-1-101-96518-4. , as quoted in Yanklowitz, Rabbi Shmuly (March 3, 2016). "Standing Together In the Era of National Division: Review of United by Cory Booker". The Huffington Post. Retrieved on 21 August 2018. 
• We make a grave mistake when we assume this spirit of connectedness is automatic or inevitable. It is not a birthright. A united country is an enduring struggle. It takes collective work and individual sacrifice. It is not enough to call on others or wait for a leader to emerge who will exalt our national values. I believe this is the question we face, as citizens of this nation: what will we do to affirm this most critical American virtue?
  • In Booker, Cory (2017). United: Thoughts on Finding Common Ground and Advancing the Common Good. Random House Publishing Group. ISBN 978-1-101-96518-4. , as quoted in Yanklowitz, Rabbi Shmuly (March 3, 2016). "Standing Together In the Era of National Division: Review of United by Cory Booker". The Huffington Post. Retrieved on 21 August 2018. 
• Most people think that these high-density poor neighborhoods, predominately people of color, just came about through some accident of history, but they were the conscious creation [of institutional racism].
  • In Cory Booker encourages students to use their moral imaginations to work for good. Stanford University (February 24, 2016). Retrieved on 21 August 2018., as quoted in Ross, Janell (July 25, 2016). "Six noteworthy things about Cory Booker". The Washington Post. Retrieved on 21 August 2018. 
• What would you do if you could not fail. Answer that question and do that.
  • Quoting his mother, in Cory Booker encourages students to use their moral imaginations to work for good. Stanford University (February 24, 2016). Retrieved on 21 August 2018., as quoted in Ross, Janell (July 25, 2016). "Six noteworthy things about Cory Booker". The Washington Post. Retrieved on 21 August 2018. 
• I respect and value the ideals of rugged individualism and self-reliance. But rugged individualism didn’t defeat the British, it didn’t get us to the moon, build our nation’s highways, or map the human genome. We did that together.
  • Drabold, Will (July 26, 2016). "Read Cory Booker's Speech at the Democratic Convention". Time. Retrieved on 21 August 2018. 

2018

There is great dignity in work – and in America, if you want to provide for your family, you should be able to find a full-time job that pays a fair wage.

• When ignorance and bigotry is allied with power, it is a dangerous force.^[2][3]

• We say an oath that we are a nation of liberty and justice for all, but that’s just words. It’s a civic faith, but I’m one of these people that says before you, "tell me about your religion, first show it to me in how you treat other people." Well, how are we living our civic gospel? How are we living our civic gospel that demands for us to reject the normalcy of injustice, the normalcy of apathy, the normalcy of indifference, and rise to the higher ground of activism, of engagement, of love?
  • Rutz, David (August 3, 2018). "Booker: Things Are ‘Savagely Wrong’ in America". The Washington Free Beacon. Retrieved on 21 August 2018. 
• I’m a big believer that if America, if this country hasn’t broken your heart, then you don’t love her enough. Because there’s things that are savagely wrong in this country.
  • Rutz, David (August 3, 2018). "Booker: Things Are ‘Savagely Wrong’ in America". The Washington Free Beacon. Retrieved on 21 August 2018. 
• I’m not here to tell folk just what they should know, I’m here to call on folk to understand that in a moral moment, there is no neutral. In a moral moment, there is no bystanders. You are either complicit in evil, you are either contributing to wrong, or you are fighting against it.
  • In Bobic, Igor (June 26, 2018). "Cory Booker Suggests Supporting Brett Kavanaugh Makes One ‘Complicit’ In Evil". The Huffington Post. Retrieved on 21 August 2018. 
• There is great dignity in work – and in America, if you want to provide for your family, you should be able to find a full-time job that pays a fair wage. The federal jobs guarantee is an idea that demands to be taken seriously. Creating an employment guarantee would give all Americans a shot at a day’s work and, by introducing competition into the labor market, raise wages and improve benefits for all workers.
  • In 11 ways Cory Booker is wooing progressives as he eyes a run for president in 2020. nj.com (August 19, 2018). Retrieved on 21 August 2018.

2019

• The vicious attack on actor Jussie Smollett was an attempted modern-day lynching. I'm glad he's safe. To those in Congress who don't feel the urgency to pass our Anti-Lynching bill designating lynching as a federal hate crime– I urge you to pay attention.
  • 29 January 2019 regarding Jussie Smollett
• You encouraging me means more to me than you can imagine (After Jimmy Carter hoped Booker run for president).^[4][5]

• The "power of the people" is greater than the "people in power" ... Change does not come from Washington, it comes to Washington.^[6]
• We are a part of this take-down culture where people are trying to twist your words.^[7]
• Sometimes you go in the pit before you go to the palace, right? You know? And that was the story of Saint Joseph ... Martin Luther King was slain, they wrote the words from Joseph's brothers when they threw Joseph in the well ... "Behold, here cometh the dreamer. Let us slay him, and see what becomes of his dream". Now, King has fallen but his dream has not died, and we are the keepers of the dream. And so, do not give up hope, do not give up faith, alright?^[8]
• Working Americans would tell you that the dignity of work is being stripped ... they are working harder than their parents and falling further behind ... while their salaries may moderately have gone up, what has gone up more is the cost of prescription drugs ... child care ... college ...^[9]

• You are dipping into the Kool-aid and you do not even know the flavor (After Joe Biden criticized Booker's anit-crime work as Newark mayor).
  • During the 2nd Democratic debate (31 July 2019)^[10][11]
• We cannot let these conversations devolve into the impotent simplicity of "Who is or is not a racist?" Because, if the answer to the question "Do racism and white supremacy exist?" is "yes", then the real question is not "Who is or is not a racist?", but "Who is or is not doing something about it?"^[12]
• ... marijuana in our country is already legal for privileged people ... the war on drugs has been a war on black and brown people.
  • During the 5th Democratic debate (20 November 2019)^[13]