“Time, as far as my father was concerned, was a gift you gave to other people.”

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.

One of the lessons that I grew up with was to always stay true to yourself and never let what somebody else says distract you from your goals. And so when I hear about negative and false attacks, I really don’t invest any energy in them, because I know who I am.

And there’s grace in being willing to know and hear others. This, for me, is how we become.

Don’t be afraid. Be focused. Be determined. Be hopeful. Be empowered.

Good relationships feel good. They feel right. They don’t hurt.

failure is a feeling long before it’s an actual result.

I was deeply, delightfully in love with a guy whose forceful intellect and ambition could possibly end up swallowing mine.

If you don’t get out there and define yourself, you’ll be quickly and inaccurately defined by others.

The realities are that, you know, as a black man, you know, Barack can get shot going to the gas station, you know.

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.

When you’re First Lady, America shows itself to you in its extremes.

Bullies were scared people hiding inside scary people.

I’ve learned that it’s harder to hate up close.

The choice, as he saw it, was this: You give up or you work for change. What’s better for us? Barack called to the people gathered in the room. Do we settle for the world as it is, or do we work for the world as it should be?

You don’t really know how attached you are until you move away, until you’ve experienced what it means to be dislodged, a cork floating on the ocean of another place.

I began to understand that his version of hope reached far beyond mine: It was one thing to get yourself out of a stuck place, I realized. It was another thing entirely to try and get the place itself unstuck.

He is a gentleman; I am a gentleman’s daughter; so far we are equal.

A father’s love always brings healing.

My father was always in good spirits, he loved football. It makes me a bit sad because if he could enjoy seeing me now, what I have achieved, that would be a highlight in his life. But I’m sure that he watches over me from above.

To her, the name of father was the name of god.

My dad’s probably one of the kindest people in the world. When I was younger that’s not how I was- I was a little spoiled brat.

Most of all, I want to thank my father, up there, the man who when I said I wanted to be an actor, he said, ‘Wonderful. Just have a back-up profession like welding.’

Mothers are fonder than fathers of their children because they are more certain they are their own.

The single thing which makes any man happiest is the realization that he has worked up to the limits of his ability, his capacity. It’s all the better, of course, if this work has made a contribution to knowledge, or toward moving the human race a little farther forward.