Michelle Obama

Barack and I were both raised by families who didn’t have much in the way of money or material possessions but who had given us something far more valuable – their unconditional love, their unflinching sacrifice, and the chance to go places they had never imagined for themselves.

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

[on the 2016 election] In light of this last election, I’m concerned about us as women and how we think. What is going on in our heads where we let that happen, you know?

People in the beauty community don’t like copycats, so I think it’s important to stay true to who you are and people will stay your customer.

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.

Failure is an important part of your growth and developing resilience. Don’t be afraid to fail.

I don’t think I’m going to lose, but if I do, I don’t think you’re ever going to see me again, folks. I think I’ll go to Turnberry and play golf or something.

Russia does not and cannot have any political choice but democracy. I want to say, and even stress, that we share those universal democratic principles taken around the whole world.

How people themselves perceive what they are doing is not a question that interests me. I mean, there are very few people who are going to look into the mirror and say, ‘That person I see is a savage monster’; instead, they make up some construction that justifies what they do. If you ask the CEO of some major corporation what he does he will say, in all honesty, that he is slaving 20 hours a day to provide his customers with the best goods or services he can and creating the best possible working conditions for his employees. But then you take a look at what the corporation does, the effect of its legal structure, the vast inequalities in pay and conditions, and you see the reality is something far different.

Russia and China are very natural partners. We are neighbors with an immense common border.

Russia does not have in its possession any trustworthy data that supports the existence of nuclear weapons or any weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and we have not received any such information from our partners as yet.

Whoever does not miss the Soviet Union has no heart. Whoever wants it back has no brain.

Radicals can be found in any environment.

We live in a democracy and the Government has to be responsive to Parliament.

My notion of the KGB came from romantic spy stories. I was a pure and utterly successful product of Soviet patriotic education.

Russia does not want confrontation of any kind. And we will not take part in any kind of ‘holy alliance.’

I don’t mind what Congress does, as long as they don’t do it in the streets and frighten the horses.

We still name our military helicopter gunships after victims of genocide. Nobody bats an eyelash about that: Blackhawk. Apache. And Comanche. If the Luftwaffe named its military helicopters Jew and Gypsy, I suppose people would notice.

The first [task of the Pentagon] is to preserve an international system in which what are called American interests – which primarily means business interests, can flourish.

I didn’t come into politics to change the Labour Party. I came into politics to change the country.

As soon as one identifies, challenges and overcomes illegitimate power, he or she is an anarchist. Most people are anarchists. What they call themselves doesn’t matter to me.