“I’m a great believer that the most important years are the sort of early years but the preschool years and then into the first and second grades. If you get a good base in the first and second grade and you can read, you can do anything.”

I mean Afghanistan is a very rugged, complicated country.

I’m not saying to be happy you must be married. Nor am I saying that to be happy you need children. I’m saying that if you opt for children – be you man or woman – you have to take care of them.

. . . learning never ends, and as we enter the next century, it will be more and more important for all Americans to be lifelong learners. . . . every one of us can contribute in some way to a better-educated America.

As if we don’t have enough volence on television. After her husband accidentally hit two spectators with golf balls during a celebrity golf tournament.

Your success as a family… our success as a nation… depends not on what happens inside the White House, but on what happens inside your house.

People who worry about their hair all the time, frankly, are boring.

I do have the most marvelous husband, children, and grandchildren.

Nobody likes a child to die or losing an election.

Life has changed enormously, and I hope – I hope more people read good things.

My son, George, has been a bad, bad boy! Right, George?

One thing I can say about George… he may not be able to keep a job, but he’s not boring.

I think a lot of our problems are because people don’t listen to our children. It is not always easy. They’re not always so brilliant that you want to spend hours with them. But it is very important to listen to them.

George is the best little dishwasher in Texas.

Value your friendship. Value your relationships.

You know, for one glorious half hour, I was the mother of the president-elect.

I’m taking a vow not to advise.

In an abstract but real sense, Marxism arose through the breakdown first of religion and then of ‘reason’ as single sources of authority.

The first big lead that I had on Broadway was in a show called La Strada.

Know who you are, because that’s how you will be cast at first. Then you can be Meryl Streep further down the road.

Basically I started playing double handed on both my forehand and backhand side because my first racket was very heavy.

It is unbelievably sad and ironic that the first victims of global warming are almost all going to come from places that are producing virtually none of the problem.

The first Broadway show I ever heard was the recording of ‘Carousel’, and it was a very vivid experience.

And let them first pray together, that so they may associate in peace.

To people who want to be rich and famous, I’d say, “Get rich first and see if that doesn’t cover it.”