Michelle Obama

I learned in those eight years is that home is where you make it, and we were in the White House for eight years, but it wasn’t the house. It was us in it. It was our value and our love for each other.

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.

We can never be complacent and think that we’ve arrived now as women. Because I hear this from young women. Some of you young women who aren’t feeling the pains that many of our predecessors have felt – you think, well, there aren’t any problems, women’s rights, we’ve got this all figured out, I’m already equal, I’m good – I’m just like, oh, just you wait, you’ll feel it. So the work continues.

Today Jazz music is performed and listened to by people of all ethnicity, backgrounds, ages and creeds.

With every word we utter, with every action we take, we know our kids are watching us. We as parents, are their most important role models.

I do not believe that we have a right to tell other people, women, that they can’t control their bodies.

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.

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

And to all of the little girls who are watching this, never doubt that you are valuable and powerful and deserving of every chance and opportunity in the world to pursue and achieve your own dreams.

The abuse of women and girls is the most pervasive and unaddressed human rights violation on earth.

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.

You can’t deny women their basic rights and pretend it’s about your ‘religious freedom’. If you don’t like birth control, don’t use it. Religious freedom doesn’t mean that you can force others to live by your own beliefs.

Sometimes, I want some damn makeup, and I’m going to wear it! Guess what — if I want to wear red lipstick and put eyelashes on, I can do whatever I f**king want. I am the creator of my own destiny,

What sometimes is missing for young girls is that so early in our lives we’re shushed. And not just directly shushed. Sometimes we’re treated a little too preciously. They treat us like a doll. They don’t treat us like real beings, equal partners. I was loved early by my father, but I was never so precious that he didn’t think I could be there at the table.

“From birth to age 18, a girl needs good parents, from 18 to 35 she needs good looks, from 35 to 55 she needs a good personality, and from 55 on she needs cash.

It’s pretty clear that if men were having babies we’d have different policies.

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

I have tremendous respect for women.

I am not a woman, so I don’t have bad days.

[My father] always reminded us that it was important to stand up for your rights, and regardless of who you are and where you come from, to hold your head up high with dignity and respect.