It was possible, I knew, to live on two planes at once—to have one’s feet planted in reality but pointed in the direction of progress.
MICHELLE OBAMAI look back on the discomfort of that moment now and recognize the more universal challenge of squaring who you are with where you come from and where you want to go.
More Michelle Obama Quotes
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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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I have had to learn that my voice has value. And if I don’t use it, what’s the point of being in the room?
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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.
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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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For me, becoming isn’t about arriving somewhere or achieving a certain aim. I see it instead as forward motion, a means of evolving, a way to reach continuously toward a better self. The journey doesn’t end.
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The more popular you became, the more haters you acquired.
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It hurts to live after someone has died. It just does.
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No one, I realized, was going to look out for me unless I pushed for it.
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Hearing them, I realized that they weren’t at all smarter than the rest of us. They were simply emboldened, floating on an ancient tide of superiority, buoyed by the fact that history had never told them anything different.
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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.
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just do what works for you, because there will always be someone who thinks differently.
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In my blinding drive to excel, in my need to do things perfectly, I’d missed the signs and taken the wrong road.
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And Barack and I were raised with so many of the same values, like you work hard for what you want in life. That your word is your bond; that you do what you say you’re going to do. That you treat people with dignity and respect, even if you don’t know them and even if you don’t agree with them.
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Failure is a feeling long before it becomes an actual result
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Do we settle for the world as it is, or do we work for the world as it should be?
MICHELLE OBAMA