Michelle Obama

I always said to myself, this would be really hard if I were 20 or 30. That’s why I look at these young celebrities, and I just feel for them, because you have to be grown up enough to know yourself in this. And that just takes time.

When I’m happier and healthier, my family is happier and healthier, and it affects how I interact with my friends and the people I work with.

I have to plan my happiness. That’s the thing, we think happiness just happens and it can, but you’ve got to work in some happiness too.

And let’s be clear: It’s not enough just to limit ads for foods that aren’t healthy. It’s also going to be critical to increase marketing for foods that are healthy.

Fear is a useless emotion. Don’t ever make decisions based on fear. Make decisions based on hope and possibility.

As I reminded my girls, these aren’t problems. These are very high class problems. Because of where Barack and I come from, we just couldn’t sympathize with their… It was like, ‘Girl, you live in the White House. You do not get to complain about this.

I love to challenge the status quo. That’s been my mission from day one as an actress and an early feminist wanting equality and wanting to push the limits of what’s possible.

So early in our lives we are shushed. And not just directly shushed but sometimes in our lives we’re treated too preciously. We may have a father that loves us and treats us like a doll. They don’t treat us like real beings and equal partners.

Strong men, men who are truly role models, don’t need to put down women to make themselves feel powerful.

I am a Woman Phenomenally. Phenomenal Woman, that’s me.

I wanted to take part in this campaign because it’s so easy to forget the many women who live their lives in fear because of domestic violence. Men have an important role to play in sending out the message that real men do not hurt or abuse their partners.

I’m not a feminist. If men were going through the things women are going through today, I would be fighting for them with just as much passion. I believe in equality.

I’m usually good about my temper, but all these men trying to control women’s bodies are really beginning to piss me off.

It’s about being alive and feisty and not sitting down and shutting up. Even if people would like you to.

For me, as a feminist, I would say it should be up to the woman to decide if she wants to be a mom … If she wants to go out and work, have a career other than being a mom, then she should be able to do that as well.

If we want our daughters to dream bigger than we did we still have work to do.

If you’re someone who genuinely believes that women don’t deserve or aren’t as much as men, you’re like the plague. On the big history chart, you’re the plague … it’s just pointless and deadly.

We have become the men we wanted to marry.

Have you watched Snow White lately? I get real funky about the classics; I don’t like (my sons) watching it. It’s totally sexist, misogynistic – she’s cleaning for seven dwarfs. There’s nothing wrong with a woman who chooses to stay at home with her family, it’s a hard-ass job, but it’s the way it’s spoken about.

Men don’t even ask that question, ‘What if it doesn’t happen?’ That’s what we do. That is a behavior of our gender. Speak up in all that tables we’re in.

I was subscribing to this sick identity. … Stay in your place, be feminine, be a lady, don’t make too much noise.