Michelle Obama Quotes

64 Sourced Quotes

You can't handle goody bags. Let me explain the goody bag thing. You have to go into the party store and choose the bags. Then you have to choose what to put in the bags, and what is in the boys' bags has to be different from what is in the girls' bags. You'd walk in there and wander around the aisles for an hour, and then your head would explode.

Michelle Obama
Do not ever let anyone make you feel like you don't matter or like you don't have a place in our American story because you do.

Michelle Obama
I am desperate for change — now — not in 8 years or 12 years, but right now. We don't have time to wait. We need big change — not just the shifting of power among insiders. We need to change the game, because the game is broken. When I think about the country I want to give my children, it's not the world we have now. All I have to do is look into the faces of my children, and I realize how much work we need to do.

Michelle Obama
We learned about dignity and decency – that how hard you work matters more than how much you make... that helping others means more than just getting ahead yourself. 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. We learned about gratitude and humility – that so many people had a hand in our success, from the teachers who inspired us to the janitors who kept our school clean, and we were taught to value everyone's contribution and treat everyone with respect.

Michelle Obama
I hate diversity workshops. Real change comes from having enough comfort to be really honest and say something very uncomfortable.

Michelle Obama
Now young people can get insurance for as little as $50 a month, less than the cost of gym shoes.

Michelle Obama
And in the end, after all that's happened these past 19 months, the Barack Obama I know today is the same man I fell in love with 19 years ago. He's the same man who drove me and our new baby daughter home from the hospital 10 years ago this summer, inching along at a snail's pace, peering anxiously at us in the rearview mirror, feeling the whole weight of her future in his hands, determined to give her everything he'd struggled so hard for himself, determined to give her what he never had: the affirming embrace of a father's love.

Michelle Obama
My first job in all honesty is going to continue to be mom-in-chief.

Michelle Obama
The physical and emotional health of an entire generation and the economic health and security of our nation are at stake. This isn't the kind of problem that can be solved overnight, but with everyone working together, it can be solved. So, let's move.

Michelle Obama
We have lost the understanding that in a democracy, we have a mutual obligation to one another. That we cannot measure the greatness of our society by the strongest and richest of us, but we have to measure our greatness by the least of these.

Michelle Obama
It is my hope that our garden's story-and the stories of gardens across America-will inspire families, schools, and communities to try their own hand at gardening and enjoy all the gifts of health, discovery, and connection a garden can bring.

Michelle Obama
We have an obligation to fight for the world as it should be.

Michelle Obama
Just as each seed we plant has the potential to become something extraordinary, so does every child.

Michelle Obama
It is our fundamental belief in the power of hope that has allowed us to rise above the voices of doubt and division, of anger and fear that we have faced in our own lives and in the life of America.

Michelle Obama
People have notions of what a wife's role should be in this process, and it's been a traditional one of blind adoration. My model is a little different - I think most real marriages are.

Michelle Obama
Those are the values that Barack and I and so many of you are trying to pass on to our own children. That's who we are. And standing before you four years ago, I knew that I did not want any of that to change if Barack became president. Well today, after so many struggles and triumphs and moments that have tested my husband in ways I never could have imagined, and I have seen firsthand that being president does not change who you are. No, it reveals the you are.

Michelle Obama
So tonight, in honor of my father's memory and my daughters' future — out of gratitude to those whose triumphs we mark this week, and those whose everyday sacrifices have brought us to this moment — let us devote ourselves to finishing their work; let us work together to fulfill their hopes; and let us stand together to elect Barack Obama president of the United States of America.

Michelle Obama
And if so many brave men and women could sacrifice their lives for our most fundamental rights, then surely we can do our parts as citizens of this great democracy to exercise those rights. Surely we can get to the polls on a election day and make our voices heard.

Michelle Obama
If you want to know the reason why I'm standing here, it's because of education. I never cut class.
To schoolgirls

Michelle Obama
I can't tell you how much it means to have Craig and my mom here tonight. Like Craig, I can feel my dad looking down on us, just as I've felt his presence in every grace-filled moment of my life. At 6-foot-6, I've often felt like Craig was looking down on me too … literally. But the truth is, both when we were kids and today, he wasn't looking down on me. He was watching over me.

Michelle Obama
Translating hope into action is something Barack has done for his entire career.

Michelle Obama
I would be very present in his life right now. I would be probably with him a good chunk of the time, just there to talk, to figure out what's going on in his head, to figure out who's in his life and who's not, you know.

Michelle Obama
And in my own life, in my own small way, I've tried to give back to this country that has given me so much. That's why I left a job at a law firm for a career in public service, working to empower young people to volunteer in their communities. Because I believe that each of us — no matter what our age or background or walk of life — each of us has something to contribute to the life of this nation.

Michelle Obama
What we've learned over this year is that hope is making a comeback. It is making a comeback. And let me tell you something — for the first time in my adult lifetime, I'm really proud of my country. And not just because Barack has done well, but because I think people are hungry for change. And I have been desperate to see our country moving in that direction and just not feeling so alone in my frustration and disappointment. I've seen people who are hungry to be unified around some basic common issues, and it's made me proud.

Michelle Obama
So when people ask me whether being in the White House has changed my husband, I can honestly say that when it comes to his character and his convictions and his heart, Barack Obama is still the same man I fell in love with all those years ago.

Michelle Obama
By actually working with the Black lower class or within their communities as a result of their ideologies, a separationist may better understand the desparation [sic] of their situation and feel more hopeless about a resolution as opposed to an integrationist who is ignorant to [sic] their plight.

Michelle Obama
A lot of young people think they're invincible, but the truth is young people are knuckleheads.

Michelle Obama
Millions of Americans who know that Barack understands their dreams; that Barack will fight for people like them; and that Barack will finally bring the change we need.

Michelle Obama
When I look at young British Muslim women, I see myself.

Michelle Obama
Today we're celebrating the kind of music that makes you move no matter who you are or where you come from; music that taps into feelings and experiences that we all share — love and heartbreak, pride and doubt, tragedy and triumph. It is called soul music.

Michelle Obama