Michelle Obama Quotes

The issues facing working women and their families are closest to my heart. I decided to focus intently on the challenges military wives face because they juggle the same pressures as their nonmilitary peers, all while coping as single parents while their loved ones are overseas. I wanted to help make their voices heard. ~ Michelle Obama

Discriminating against same-sex couples just isn't right. ~ Michelle Obama

It's one of the most useless questions an adult can ask a child... 'What do you want to be when you grow up?' As if growing up is finite. As if, at some point, you become something and that's the end. ~ Michelle Obama

Communities and countries and ultimately the world are only as strong as the health of their women. ~ Michelle Obama

For me, being a mother made me a better professional, because coming home every night to my girls reminded me what I was working for. And being a professional made me a better mother, because by pursuing my dreams, I was modeling for my girls how to pursue their dreams. ~ Michelle Obama

Focus on what you can control. Be a good person every day. Vote. Read. Treat one another kindly. Follow the law. Don't tweet nasty stuff. ~ Michelle Obama

Fortunately, we have help from the media. I have to say this: I'm very grateful for the support and kindness that we've gotten. People have respected their privacy and in that way, I think, you know, no matter what people may feel about my husband's policies or what have you, they care about children and that's been good to see. ~ Michelle Obama

to look rather than look away ~ Michelle Obama

First Lady Michelle Obama appears on 'Sesame Street' to celebrate the show's 40th anniversary. It's going to be a big episode. Yes, sources say the episode gets a little tense when Ernie and Bert ask the first lady why her husband's dragging his feet on gay marriage. ~ Conan O'Brien

My message to women: Do what makes you feel good, because there'll always be someone who thinks you should do it differently. Whether your choices are hits or misses, at least they're your own. ~ Michelle Obama

Good relationships feel good. They feel right. They don't hurt. ~ Michelle Obama

My ability to get through my day greatly depends on the relationship that I have with other women ... We have to be able to champion other women. We have to root for each other's successes and not delight in one another's failures. ~ Michelle Obama

People who are truly strong lift others up. People who are truly powerful bring others together. ~ Michelle Obama

A word now about the bar exam: It's a necessary chore, a rite of passage for any just-hatched lawyer wishing to practice, and though the content and structure of the test itself vary somewhat from state to state, the experience of taking it - a two-day, twelve-hour exam meant to prove your knowledge of everything from contract law to arcane rules about secured transactions - is pretty much universally recognized as hellish. ~ Michelle Obama

And Barack and I were raised with so many of the same values, like you work hard for what you want in life. That your word is your bond; that you do what you say you're going to do. That you treat people with dignity and respect, even if you don't know them and even if you don't agree with them. ~ Michelle Obama

What I love about design is the artistic and scientific complexity that also becomes useful ... ~ Michelle Obama

I've always been a closet jock, but when I got married and had kids, that fell by the wayside. ~ Michelle Obama

We have to design policies that have meaningful impacts on the quality of life of women and families. And that's something that I know I can speak passionately about because whether I'm in the White House as First Lady, as long as I have kids and I'm trying to have a life, I'm gonna be trying to make this balance work. ~ Michelle Obama

Find people who will make you better. ~ Michelle Obama

My mother's love has always been a sustaining force for our family, and one of my greatest joys is seeing her integrity, her compassion, her intelligence reflected in my daughters. ~ Michelle Obama

Childhood obesity isn't about looks. And it's not about weight. It's about how our kids feel. And those are really the implications of the problem and the words that tell a fuller picture of the challenges that we face; you know, kids struggling in ways that they didn't a generation ago. ~ Michelle Obama

It's always positive to hear how many people are willing to step up - whether it is the employment community, mental health community, or medical community. ~ Michelle Obama

I knew what mattered to me. I didn't want to be some sort of well-dressed ornament who showed up at parties and ribbon cuttings. I wanted to do things that were purposeful and lasting. ~ Michelle Obama

I'm a fry lover. ~ Michelle Obama

Unspoken was the fact that he could just go. He could walk out the door and catch a cab to the airport and still make it to Springfield in time to vote. He could leave his sick daughter and fretting wife halfway across the Pacific and go join his colleagues. It was an option. But I wasn't going to martyr myself by suggesting it. ~ Michelle Obama

I wasn't going to let one person's opinion dislodge everything I thought I knew about myself. ~ Michelle Obama

I let his voice be my comfort. It bore no trace of pain or self-pity, carrying only good humor and softness and just the tiniest hint of jazz. I lived on it as if it were oxygen. It was sustaining, and it was always enough. ~ Michelle Obama

...our stories connected us to one another, and through those connections, it was possible to harness discontent and convert it to something useful. ~ Michelle Obama

I think that people are tired. They're tired of the same old kind of politics. People want a new tone to politics. ~ Michelle Obama

I have had to learn that my voice has value. And if I don't use it, what's the point of being in the room? ~ Michelle Obama

Together, we can help make sure that every family that walks into a restaurant can make an easy, healthy choice. ~ Michelle Obama

The noise doesn't go away, but the most successful people I know have figured out how to live with it, to lean on the people who believe in them, and to push onward with their goals. ~ Michelle Obama

We're going to have to change our traditions, our history ~ Michelle Obama

I've always been a closet jock. With exercising, the more you do it, the more you get into it. And the more you see results, the more you're pushing for the next level. ~ Michelle Obama

Michelle has had to grapple with Hilary Clinton's legacy as First Lady ... Michelle Obama never wants to be seen as the kind of First Lady who is overly involved in the West Wing. ~ Jodi Kantor

If my future were determined just by my performance on a standardized test, I wouldn't be here. I guarantee you that. ~ Michelle Obama

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. ~ Michelle Obama

We're [President Barack Obama and I] clear on the fact that we have to stay humble and prayerful. We have to dig down deep to our roots. When things come together, we know some of it is Barack, some of it is us-but a lot of it has nothing to do with either of us. ~ Michelle Obama

Usually, you get to interview that one girl who plays the sister on some Disney show - you interview that girl a lot - but sometimes, every once in a while, you get to interview a legend. I have interviewed some amazingly iconic people, including Michelle Obama, Oprah, Sidney Poitier and Judy Dench. These people are legit icons. ~ Ross Mathews

For me, becoming isn't about arriving somewhere or achieving a certain aim. I see it instead as forward motion, a means of evolving, a way to reach continuously toward a better self. The journey doesn't end. ~ Michelle Obama

We as parents are our children's first and best role models, and this is particularly true when it comes to their health ... We can't lie around on the couch eating French fries and candy bars and expect our kids to eat carrots and run around the block. ~ Michelle Obama

I think Michelle Obama is on the right track with her Let's Move campaign to bring down childhood obesity. She and I come from the same state, Illinois, which is number four in the nation for obese children. One out of five Illinois children are considered obese. Not overweight, obese. And two-thirds of Americans are either overweight or obese. ~ Aaron Schock

When I was younger, I could eat whatever I wanted, as long as I exercised; or if I didn't exercise and just watched what I ate, I'd maintain. Now I have to do both. ~ Michelle Obama

To amplify our efforts, USDA is joining with First Lady Michelle Obama in aggressively promoting the 'Let's Move' campaign, which will combat the epidemic of childhood obesity through a comprehensive approach that builds on effective strategies, and mobilizes public and private sector resources. ~ Tom Vilsack

You've got to make choices that make sense for you because there's always going to be somebody who'll think you should do something differently. ~ Michelle Obama

For me, as a mother, I am just, you know, I just can't put into words how important it is for every American, for every mother, for every person in this country, to have healthcare. ~ Michelle Obama

Every day, the people I meet inspire me ... every day, they make me proud ... every day they remind me how blessed we are to live in the greatest nation on earth. ~ Michelle Obama

It was painful, but time pushed us all forward. ~ Michelle Obama

In a recent interview, Michelle Obama said that the Secret Service taught Malia how to drive. In exchange, Malia taught the Secret Service how to throw a party when her parents are away. ~ Conan O'Brien

I have never been proud of America my entire adult life. ~ Michelle Obama

Policies that support families aren't political issues. They're personal. They're the causes I carry with me every single day. ~ Michelle Obama

I'm not asking any of you to make drastic changes to every single one of your recipes or to totally change the way you do business. But what I am asking is that you consider reformulating your menu in pragmatic and incremental ways to create healthier versions of the foods that we all love. ~ Michelle Obama

Wounded Warriors tell me they're not just going to walk again, they're going to run, and they're going to run marathons! ~ Michelle Obama

The measure of any society is how it treats its women and girls. ~ First Lady Michelle Obama

One of my favorite stories is from Obama's first campaign: Michelle Obama was out there every day, collecting signatures and supervising the other people who did. If you were supposed to get 300 signatures and you only got 299, you had to face the wrath of Michelle. ~ Jodi Kantor

Accepting the presidency, Barack introduces "my best friend of sixteen years, the love of my life, Michelle Obama" and I think I will pass out.
That, right there, is love in action. ~ Emma Forrest

Kids will invest more, when they feel they're being invested in. ~ Michelle Obama

It's not about government telling people what to do ... It's about each of us, in our own families, in our own communities, standing up and demanding more for our kids. And it's about companies like Walmart answering that call. ~ Michelle Obama

He's always asking: 'Is that new? I haven't seen that before.' It's like, Why don't you mind your own business? Solve world hunger. Get out of my closet. ~ Michelle Obama

We don't need new discoveries or new inventions to reverse this trend. We have the tools at our disposal to reverse it. All we need is the motivation, the opportunity and the willpower to do what needs to be done ... With this report, we have a very solid road map that we need to make these goals real, to solve this problem within a generation. ~ Michelle Obama

You can't make decisions based on fear and the possibility of what might happen. ~ Michelle Obama

Style helps distinguish you ... It's a great potential opportunity that people tend to leave by the wayside ~ Michelle Obama

Barack knows the American Dream because he's lived it - and he wants everyone in this country to have that same opportunity, no matter who we are, or where we're from, or what we look like, or who we love. ~ Michelle Obama

He was like a wind that threatened to unsettle everything. ~ Michelle Obama

Twenty minutes later, I caught sight of Barack across the room, in the grips of what looked to be an endless conversation with the woman, who was doing a large portion of the talking. He shot me a look, implying that he'd like to be rescued. But he was a grown man. I let him rescue himself. ~ Michelle Obama

You know, you have to start with hope ... you don't get anywhere in this country without hope. So it's a necessity. What Barack says is that people have to understand hope isn't just blind optimism. It isn't passive. It isn't just sitting there waiting for things to get better. Hope is the vision that you have to have. It's the inspiration that moves people into action ... There are more people engaged in this political process in this year than we've seen in my lifetime. And it is all because of hope because people believe in the possibility of something unseen. ~ Michelle Obama

Do not die in the history of your past hurts and past experiences, but live in the now and future of your destiny. ~ Michelle Obama

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. ~ Michelle Obama

I will forever associate with New Yorkers - an instinctive and immediate push back against thinking small. She climbed out of the car, giving me no choice but to drive. 'Get over it and just live a little' was her message. ~ Michelle Obama

They were me, as I'd once been. And I was them, as they could be. ~ Michelle Obama

There were days, weeks, and months when I hated politics. And there were moments when the beauty of this country and its people so overwhelmed me that I couldn't speak. ~ Michelle Obama

Good health is multifaceted - it's physical, it's internal, it's my diet, and my emotional state. It's all tied in together. ~ Michelle Obama

My most important title is Mom in Chief ~ Michelle Obama

The problem is when that fun stuff becomes the habit. And I think that's what's happened in our culture. Fast food has become the everyday meal. ~ Michelle Obama

There is no magic to achievement. It's really about hard work, choices, and persistence. ~ Michelle Obama

I'd been raised to be confident and see no limits, to believe I could go after and get absolutely anything I wanted. And I wanted everything. Because, as Suzanne would say, why not? I wanted to live with the hat-tossing, independent-career-woman zest of Mary Tyler Moore, and at the same time I gravitated toward the stabilizing, self-sacrificing, seemingly bland normalcy of being a wife and mother. I wanted to have a work life and a home life, but with some promise that one would never fully squelch the other. I hoped to be exactly like my own mother and at the same time nothing like her at all. It was an odd and confounding thing to ponder. Could I have everything? Would I have everything? I had no idea. ~ Michelle Obama

Our guest tonight is Michelle Obama, first lady of the United States. She's here to announce her run for president. ~ David Letterman

I want a president who will teach our children that everyone in this country matters, a president who truly believes in the vision that our Founders put forth all those years ago that we are all created equal, each a beloved part of the great American story. ~ Michelle Obama

And in the end, I hadn't needed to show her anything. I was only showing myself. ~ Michelle Obama

It was a small but life-changing move. I didn't stop to ask myself then what would happen to all the kids who'd been left in the basement with the teacher who couldn't teach. Now that I'm an adult, I realize that kids know at a very young age when they're being devalued, when adults aren't invested enough to help them learn. Their anger over it can manifest itself as unruliness. It's hardly their fault. They aren't "bad kids." They're just trying to survive bad circumstances. ~ Michelle Obama

Be passionate about something and lean to that strength. ~ Michelle Obama

We have first lady Michelle Obama on the show tonight. As you'd expect, security's been pretty tight. On my way in I got five pat-downs, and that was just from Joe Biden. ~ Jimmy Fallon

When you walk through that door of opportunity you don't slam it shut behind you, ~ Michelle Obama

...Barack had told me, he'd contended most often with a deep weariness in people--especially black people---a cynicism bred from a thousand small disappointments over time. I understood it. I'd seen it in my own neighborhood, in my own family. A bitterness, a lapse in faith. It lived in both of my grandfathers, spawned by every goal they'd abandoned and every compromise they'd had to make. It was inside the harried second-grade teacher who'd basically given up trying to teach us at Bryn Mawr. It was inside the neighbor who'd stopped mowing her lawn or keeping track of where her kids went after school. It lived in every piece of trash tossed carelessly in the grass at our local park and every ounce of malt liquor drained before dark. It lived in every last thing we deemed unfixable, including ourselves. ~ Michelle Obama

I am desperate for change - now - not in 8 years or 12 years, but right now. ~ Michelle Obama

I don't think Michelle [Obama:] minds bein our new muse. I think she gets it. We little brown girls - drunk off The Cosby Show, sobered up by life, and a little suicidal - we need her. ~ Helena Andrews

During the first campaign, one of my jobs as my husband's spouse was to travel around the country and really listen to women. There were voices that were new to me: the voices of military spouses, many of them women, and veterans ... I was overwhelmed by their challenges, and the notion that we as a country don't even know that these women exist, because we live in a country where one percent of the population protects the rights and freedoms of the other 99 percent of us. I thought that if I had the opportunity to serve as First Lady, I was going to use this platform to be their voice. ~ Michelle Obama

Whatever deficits I might have arrived with, coming from an inner-city high school, it seemed that I could make up for them by putting in extra time, asking for help when I needed it, and learning to pace myself and not procrastinate. ~ Michelle Obama

My husband and I make physical activity a priority in our lives, and our daughters love being active as well. And while we each have sports and activities we enjoy, we try to go for hikes or bike rides together whenever we get the chance. We've found that the best way to help our girls be active is to find activities they truly enjoy. ~ Michelle Obama

Childhood obesity isn't some simple, discrete issue. There's no one cause we can pinpoint. There's no one program we can fund to make it go away. Rather, it's an issue that touches on every aspect of how we live and how we work. ~ Michelle Obama

It's easier to hold onto your own stereotypes and misconceptions, it makes you feel justified in your own ignorance. That's America. So the challenge for us is, are we ready for change? ~ Michelle Obama

In the Midwest... winter is an exercise in waiting - for relief, for a bird to sing, for the first purple crocus to push up through the snow. ~ Michelle Obama

I am not asking anyone to take the fun out of childhood. As we all know, treats are one of the best parts of being a kid. Instead, the goal here is to empower parents instead of undermining them as they try to make healthier choices for their families. ~ Michelle Obama

When the average child is now spending nearly eight hours a day in front of some kind of screen, many of their opinions and preferences are being shaped by the marketing campaigns you all create. And that's where the problem comes in ... And I'm here today with one simple request-and that is to do even more and move even faster to market responsibly to our kids. ~ Michelle Obama

Women should have the freedom to do whatever they need to do to feel good about themselves, ~ Michelle Obama

Our parents had drilled us under the importance of using proper diction, of saying "going" instead of "goin" and "isn't" instead of "ain't ". We were taught to finish off words. They bought us a dictionary and a full Encyclopedia Britannica set, which lived on a shelf in the stairwell to our apartment, its titles etched in gold. Any time we had a question about a word, or a concept, or some piece of history, they directed us toward those books. Dandy, too, was an influence, meticulously correcting our grammar and admonishing us to enunciate our words when we went over for dinner. The idea was we were to transcend, to get ourselves further. They'd planned for it. They encouraged it. We were expected not just to be smart but to own our smartness – to inhabit it with pride – and this filtered down to how we spoke. ~ Michelle Obama

I've been very lucky to put women that I sincerely admire on the cover of 'Vogue:' the then First Lady and now Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and, more recently, First Lady Michelle Obama. Those were benchmarks for the magazine, and certainly covers that I've been very, very proud of. ~ Anna Wintour

I like to talk about my obsession with french fries because I don't want people to think that 'Let's Move' is about complete, utter deprivation. It's about moderation and real-life changes and ideas that really work for families. ~ Michelle Obama

Ultimately this issue is on us. We're the ones who make the decisions about what our kids eat. ~ Michelle Obama

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. ~ Michelle Obama