Quotes

Choose people who lift you up. Find people who will make you better... Of course I've made my husband better!

[joking about her self-described 'mid-life crisis'] I couldn't get a sports car, they won't let me bungee-jump, so instead I cut my bangs.

[2013: Opening remarks while presenting the Academy Award for Best Picture] These nine movies took us back in time and all around the world. They made us laugh, they made us weep, they made us grip our armrest a little tighter. They taught us that love can endure against all odds and transform our lives in the most surprising ways. And they reminded us that we can overcome any obstacle if we work hard enough, and dig deep enough, and find the courage in ourselves. These lessons apply to all of us, no matter who we are, or what we look like, or where we come from, or who we love, but they are especially important for our young people. Every day, through engagement in the arts our children learn to open their imaginations, to dream just a little bigger, and to strive every day to reach those dreams. And I want to thank all of you tonight, for being here to fulfill that vitally important work.

[a special Thanksgiving thought, 2013] Miiitary families don't complain. They're proud of their service and more than willing to make the sacrifices that come with it. And no matter how tough it gets, because they're so strong and resilient they somehow keep everything together. They succeed in their jobs, run their households and even find time to serve their communities. So I'm feeling tremendously thankful and I hope you'll join me in working to serve them as well as they've served our country.

[observation as First Lady, 2016] Each morning I wake up in a house that was built by slaves.

Barack and I were raised with so many of the same values: that your work hard for what you want in life; that your word is your bond and you do what you say you're going to do; that you treat people with dignity and respect.

This is the unfair thing - you talk about Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers - no matter what we do, he [Barack Obama] puts on that same tux. Now, people take pictures of the shoes I wear, the bracelets, the necklace - they didn't comment that for eight years he wore the same tux, same shoes.

I know that his [Barack Obama] ability to ultimately kick the habit [smoking] was because of the girls, because they're at the age now where you can't hide. I think that he didn't want to look his girls in the eye and tell them that they shouldn't do something that he was still doing.

The Affordable Care Act is not Barack's legacy. It is our country's legacy

Any woman who voted against Hillary Clinton voted against their own voice

[on the Access Hollywood" tape, when Trump spoke about groping and kissing women without their consent]it had shaken me to my core in a way that I couldn't have predicted

[February 2007; on her husband's smoking habit] I hate it. That's why he doesn't do it anymore. I'm proud to say. I outed him - I'm the one who outed him on the smoking. That was one of my prerequisites for, you know, entering this race, is that, you know, he couldn't be a smoking president.

I have always believed in the power of storytelling to inspire us, to make us think differently about the world around us, and to help us open our minds and hearts to others.

Being president doesn't change who you are. It reveals who you are.

[at the 2016 Democratic National Convention] When they go low, we go high.