The arts are not just a nice thing to have or to do if there is free time or if one can afford it. Rather, paintings and poetry, music and fashion, design and dialogue, they all define who we are as a people and provide an account of our history for the next generation.
MICHELLE OBAMANow 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.
More Michelle Obama Quotes
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When they go low, we go high.
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It’s easier to hold onto your own stereotypes and misconceptions, it makes you feel justified in your own ignorance. That’s America. So the challenge for us is, are we ready for change?
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The realities are that, you know, as a black man, you know, Barack can get shot going to the gas station, you know.
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I was deeply, delightfully in love with a guy whose forceful intellect and ambition could possibly end up swallowing mine.
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Everything was not lost. This was the message we needed to carry forward. It’s what I truly believed. It wasn’t ideal, but it was our reality—the world as it is. We needed now to be resolute, to keep our feet pointed in the direction of progress.
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And there’s grace in being willing to know and hear others. This, for me, is how we become.
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You find ways to adapt. If you’re in it forever, there’s really no choice.
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At fifty-four, I am still in progress, and I hope that I always will be.
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Fulfillment, I’m sure, struck her as a rich person’s conceit.
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I just wanted to achieve. Or maybe I didn’t want to be dismissed as incapable of achievement.
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there’s no straight line between effort and reward.
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Everyone on Earth, they’d tell us, was carrying around an unseen history, and that alone deserved some tolerance.
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Even white people were recognizing him now.
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Your story is what you have, what you will always have. It is something to own.
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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