Fernando Pessoa

I know nothing and my heart aches.

When the mind is perfectly clear, what is is what we want.

Willpower is a myth. The problem with trying to use willpower to achieve and sustain a behavioral change is that it is fueled by emotion. And as we all know, our emotions are, at best, fickle. They come and go. When your emotions start running down — and they will — even your best-laid plans will fall flat.

Our life before moving to Washington was filled with simple joys. Saturdays at soccer games, Sundays at Grandma’s house. And a date night for Barack and me was either dinner or a movie, because as an exhausted mom, I couldn’t stay awake for both. He was still the guy who’d picked me up for our dates in a car that was so rusted out, I could actually see the pavement going by through a hole in the passenger-side door.

Children have helped me a lot.

If you harbor hatred, anger, and bitterness (towards her), then you are absolutely locked into a bond through those negative emotions.

You have to figure out what that is, and you have to make a plan to get to it. And the plan has got to have a timeline. You have to choose something that you can afford to do and then lock it in and passionately do it.

No one gossips about other people’s secret virtues.

Loving smart means believing in you, your worth and your value.

I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve (or save) the world and a desire to enjoy (or savor) the world. This makes it hard to plan the day.

It has been my observation that most people get ahead during the time that others waste.

My meaning simply is, that whatever I have tried to do in life, I have tried with all my heart to do well; that whatever I have devoted myself to, I have devoted myself to completely; that in great aims and in small, I have always been thoroughly in earnest.

No matter what side of the argument you are on, you always find people on your side that you wish were on the other.

It’s hard to see your own face without a mirror.

Unless you know who you are, you will always be vulnerable to what people say.

This morning I woke with my ear pressed between shoulder blades. Every inhale, every drum, every pump, thump of your heartbeat said one thing – home, home, home.