Michelle Obama

Oftentimes, it’s the way we react to change that is the thing that determines the overall experience.

At the root of this dilemma is the way we view mental health in this country. Whether an illness affects your heart, your leg or your brain, it’s still an illness, and there should be no distraction.

There are still many causes worth sacrificing for, so much history yet to be made.

I want our young people to know that they matter, that they belong. So don’t be afraid. You hear me, young people? Don’t be afraid. Be focused. Be determined. Be hopeful. Be empowered. Empower yourself with a good education. Then get out there and use that education to build a country worthy of your boundless promise. Lead by example with hope; never fear.

I always touch people, because I know that there’s a level of anxiety, people are teary or they’re nervous, and I just try to physically hold them and bring them down and say: ‘We’re here. I’m just Michelle.’

It’s hard to have it all. And if you’re compromising through one phase of your journey, you’re not giving it all up, you’re compromising for that phase

They say that no matter how old you become, when you are with your siblings, you revert back to childhood.

I was not a classic mother. But my kids were never palmed off to boarding school. So, I didn’t bake cookies. You can buy cookies, but you can’t buy love.

I feel very blessed to have two wonderful, healthy children who keep me completely grounded, sane and throw up on my shoes just before I go to an awards show just so I know to keep it real.

I’ve learned that regardless of your relationship with your parents, you’ll miss them when they’re gone from your life.

Your children can be around you all day, but if you don’t spend quality time with them and you don’t pay attention to them and talk to them and listen to them, it doesn’t matter that they’re just around you.

I was loved dearly by my father but I was never so precious that he didn’t think that I could be in there right at the table.

I have real good parents. They poor. They have regular, poor jobs and what not. They real good people and what not; I was just raised in a bad society.

I learned another thing from the hurt my cousin gave me – never to give that kind of hurt to anyone else. My revenge was to change a bad feeling into a good one. If I’m working with you and I sense you’re feeling a little insecure, I try to make you feel great. That’s how I get rid of my old hurt. If I don’t do that, my hurt grows and makes me mean and vengeful. But if hurt can change to kindness – that’s something Mama showed me – the world becomes a little less cruel.

How do people make it through life without a sister?

The pressures of being a parent are equal to any pressure on earth. To be a conscious parent, and really look to that little being’s mental and physical health is a responsibility which most of us, including me, avoid most of the time, because it’s too hard…To put it loosely, the reason why kids are crazy is because nobody can face the responsibility of bringing them up…

I have not been a good father, but no father has loved his children more. Like my father, I decided the best thing I could do for my kids was work and provide. Fortunately, I’ve been able to do that. Unfortunately, my work was on the road, and that’s meant a life of one-nighters.

Never fret for an only son, the idea of failure will never occur to him.

She does have a very nice figure… If [Ivanka] weren’t my daughter, perhaps I’d be dating her.

A sibling represents a person’s past, present, and future.

[On his mother’s adversity] She had a very difficult beginning… All of my mothers family were killed… and she came to America at the time of the depression. It was not an easy life at all.