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

Michelle Obama

But as I’ve said, failure is a feeling long before it’s an actual result. And for me, it felt like that’s exactly what she was planting—a suggestion of failure long before I’d even tried to succeed.
MICHELLE OBAMA

Failure Feeling Myself Plant Result Success
I didn’t want them ever to believe that life began when the man of the house arrived home. We didn’t wait for Dad. It was his job now to catch up with us.
MICHELLE OBAMA

Believe Home Job Life Man Myself
In my blinding drive to excel, in my need to do things perfectly, I’d missed the signs and taken the wrong road.
MICHELLE OBAMA

Myself Need Perfection Road Wrong
I’ve smiled for photos with people who call my husband horrible names on national television, but still want a framed keepsake for their mantel.
MICHELLE OBAMA

Husband Myself Photograph Smile
Look how I’m managing, I wanted to say in those moments, to my audience of no one. Does everyone see that I’m pulling this off?
MICHELLE OBAMA

Moments Myself See
The more popular you became, the more haters you acquired.
MICHELLE OBAMA

Fame Hate Success
At fifty-four, I am still in progress, and I hope that I always will be.
MICHELLE OBAMA

Hope Improvement Mindset Myself
Friendships between women, as any woman will tell you, are built of a thousand small kindnesses, swapped back and forth and over again.
MICHELLE OBAMA

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

Human Myself Willing
What I notice about men, all men, is that their order is me, my family, God is in there somewhere, but me is first.
MICHELLE OBAMA

Family God Man Myself
Even if we didn’t know the context, we were instructed to remember that context existed. Everyone on earth, they’d tell us, was carrying around an unseen history, and that alone deserved some tolerance.
MICHELLE OBAMA

Carry Deserve Existence History Remember Tolerance
Now that I’m an adult, I realize that kids know at a very young age when they’re being devalued, when adults aren’t invested enough to help them learn. Their anger over it can manifest itself as unruliness. It’s hardly their fault. They aren’t bad kids. They’re just trying to survive bad circumstances.
MICHELLE OBAMA

Age Children Enough Investment Myself Survive Young
No one, I realized, was going to look out for me unless I pushed for it.
MICHELLE OBAMA

Effort Inspirational Myself
just do what works for you, because there will always be someone who thinks differently.
MICHELLE OBAMA

Different Thinking Yourself
I’ve learned that it’s harder to hate up close.
MICHELLE OBAMA

Hard Learning Myself
I just wanted to achieve. Or maybe I didn’t want to be dismissed as incapable of achievement.
MICHELLE OBAMA

Achievement Myself Success Worth

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

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

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