Michelle Obama

For so many people, TV and movies may be the only way they understand people who aren’t like them. It becomes important for the world to see different images of each other, so that we can develop empathy and understanding.

You don’t want to be with a boy who is too stupid to appreciate a smart young lady. There is no boy who is cute enough or interesting enough to stop you from getting your education.

You cannot take your freedoms for granted. Just like generations who have come before you, you have to do your part to preserve and protect those freedoms… you need to be preparing yourself to add your voice to our national conversation.

Whether you come from a council estate or a country estate, your success will be determined by your own confidence and fortitude.

The difference between a broken community and a thriving one is the presence of women who are valued.

We learned about honesty and integrity – that the truth matters… that you don’t take shortcuts or play by your own set of rules… and success doesn’t count unless you earn it fair and square.

Relationships are negotiated and if you deal with ultimatums and authority all the time, then you’re not going to get anywhere.

If I’m not interested in a woman, I’m straight-forward. Right after sex, I usually say, ‘I can’t do this anymore. Thanks for coming over!’

Women prefer men who have something tender about them – especially the legal kind.

I think careful cooking is love, don’t you? The loveliest thing you can cook for someone who’s close to you is about as nice a Valentine as you can give.

[On hooking up romantically with co-stars] It’s understandable. You’re in situations with an actress where you’re supposed to be intimate, physical, and vulnerable with each other, and sometimes feelings get crossed. It’s like you’re away at summer camp and it seems to make sense, but when you go back home, the reality is that it may not be a situation you want to be in.

Strong relationships are the key.

If you’ve gone into a marriage and you haven’t been clear about how you’re going to handle money, how you want to raise kids, who is going to work or stay home or what have you, then you’ve set yourself up for failure.

Breaking up is a natural evolution when you try to figure out what you want in life. If you’re with an individual who isn’t moving in the same direction and at the same rate that you are, it ain’t going to work.

When you get married, your loyalty, first and foremost, is to your spouse, and to the family that you create together.

You can repeat the mistakes of your parents’ marriage or you can go out of your way not to repeat them.

When we think of friends, and call their faces out of the shadows, and their voices out of the echoes that faint along the corridors of memory, and do it without knowing why save that we love to do it, we content ourselves that that friendship is a Reality, and not a Fancy-that it is builded upon a rock, and not upon the sands that dissolve away with the ebbing tides and carry their monuments with them.

I don’t know where to find a good guy. I just think that they’re around and I think you have to be good and at some point you’ll attract that. I really believe that. First, people should stop looking. The looking thing does not work. Just let love find you.

My boyfriend and I live together, which means we don’t have sex-ever. Now that the milk is free, we’ve both become lactose intolerant.

I have had young fascinations but never love.

I married the first man I ever kissed. When I tell this to my children, they just about throw up.