Quote

First ladies, you know, we look at Michelle Obama, and we look at most first ladies, and they seem like they have it all. You know, they live in the White House, they go to state dinners, they ride on Air Force One, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. But first ladies do often feel that they are given short shrift or forgotten or left at the margins.

I like to be treated as a lady.

I'm every woman. It takes a village to make me who I am.

I was in fact pretty much - by the larger culture, by the local culture, by people around me, by people on TV - encouraged to imagine women as something slightly inferior to men.

Well, I went through some emotionally abusive relationships and allowed myself to not be properly respected as a lady, as a human being even, though I tried everything I knew to be a lady.

The problems with First Ladies is that you have to set the standard. My role is to be both star and slave.

I always feel like I've been slightly misunderstood. As a woman, you get judged for appearances or things like that I don't really care about.

You make a first impression and people never forget it. If people want to think of me as the wacky 'Juno' lady forever, I could think of worse ways to be labeled.

Although the circumstances of our lives may seem very disengaged, with me standing here as the First Lady of the United States of America and you just getting through school, I want you to know we have very much in common. For nothing in my life ever would have predicted that I would be standing here as the first African-American First Lady.