Michelle Obama

Don’t ever make decisions based on fear. Make decisions based on hope and possibility. Make decisions based on what should happen, not what shouldn’t.

What truly made me fall in love with Barack Obama was his character.

Our first job in life as women, I think, is to get to know ourselves. And I think a lot of times we don’t do that. We spend our time pleasing, satisfying, looking out into the world to define who we are – listening to the messages, the images, the limited definitions that people have of who we are.

We explain when someone is cruel or acts like a bully, you do not stoop to their level. Our motto is when they go low, you go high.

It was sort of important for us not to deal with a specific policy change, or a specific sort of approach, but to deal with cultural change.

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.

I’ll drink water. Sometimes tomato juice, which I like. Sometimes orange juice, which I like. I’ll drink different things. But the Coke or Pepsi boosts you up a little.

My advice would be to talk to people about [your anxiety]. Don’t feel alone in it. Treat your body as if you are another person that you need to take care of and heal.

The healthy stomach is nothing if it is not conservative. Few radicals have good digestions.

I don’t regret opening up about what I went through [with depression]. Because, it sounds really cliche, but I have had women come up to me and say, ‘It meat so much to me.’

And every person can benefit from talking to somebody. I’m the most anti-medication person, but some people need medicine, and there was a time where I needed some too.

I feel like there’s this glamour… where the woman who has a psychological illness is in fur, laid out on a chaise. Whereas in reality, a woman with mental illness or… is struggling with her psychological wellbeing is often in sweats and in a T-shirt that used to belong to her dad and is covered in food bits.

I keep healthy and I’m always very active and always have been so. I don’t really see any signs of aging yet. Music keeps you young.

We can’t let people down when they can’t get any medical care, when they’re sick and don’t have money to go to a doctor. You help them.

[on depression] This is a disorder that affects millions of people and I am on of them. There is no need to suffer silently and there is no shame in seeking help.

I say there’re no depressed words just depressed minds.

I believe we have to nip Ebola in the bud before it spreads through Africa and to other countries.

My brain and my heart are really important to me, I don’t know why I wouldn’t seek help to have those things be as healthy as my teeth. I go to the dentist. So why wouldn’t I go to a shrink?

As a teen, I was both anorexic and bulimic.

You don’t see the mental illness: It’s not a mass; it’s not a cyst. But it’s there. Why do you need to prove it?

Not only is it a part of my life, I need to bring awareness to the severity of Lyme disease.