I was astonished to see how our leaders treated him only as a threat to their power, inciting mistrust by playing on backward, anti-intellectual ideas about race and class.

If people wonder, yes, Hillary Clinton is my friend. She has been a friend to me and Barack and Malia and Sasha, and Bill and Chelsea have been embracing and supportive from the very day my husband took the oath of office.

At the root of this dilemma is the way we view mental health in this country. Whether an illness affects your heart, your leg or your brain, it's still an illness, and there should be no distraction.
-- Michelle Obama.

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.

Some of my best memories are sitting on my dad's lap, cheering on Olga and Nadia, Carl Lewis and others for their brilliance and perfection.

Childhood obesity isn't about looks. And it's not about weight. It's about how our kids feel. And those are really the implications of the problem and the words that tell a fuller picture of the challenges that we face; you know, kids struggling in ways that they didn't a generation ago.

The biggest obstacle facing girls is education, education, education. There are too many kids who think high school is a pit stop to fame and fortune. I want girls in this country to think education is the coolest, most important thing they could ever do in their lives.

Barack and I were both raised by families who didn't have much in the way of money or material possessions but who had given us something far more valuable -- their unconditional love, their unflinching sacrifice, and the chance to go places they had never imagined for themselves.

Because no matter what happened, I had the peace of mind of knowing that all of the chatter, the name-calling, the doubting -\-\ all of it was just noise. It did not define me. It didn't change who I was. And most importantly, it couldn't hold me back.

I felt it then -- the power of what we were doing, the significance of the ritual -- as we stood there with our future still unwritten, with every unknown still utterly unknown, just gripping each other's hands as we said our vows.

Remember a few years ago when Congress declared that the sauce on a slice of pizza should count as a vegetable in school lunches? You don't have to be a nutritionist to know that this doesn't make much sense.

Walk away from 'friendships' that make you feel small and insecure, and seek out people who inspire you and support you.

If I point to anything that makes me who I am, it's that I have a whole lot of common sense. I've got a good mind and a good ability to read people and situations.

Communities and countries and ultimately the world are only as strong as the health of their women.

Becoming requires equal parts patience and rigor. Becoming is never giving up on the idea that there's more growing to be done.

I have to be in tune. All the time. I have to be in tune with my husband, where he is, how he's feeling. I have to be in tune with where my family is.

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?

Service is a limitless opportunity, it is the reason why we breathe.

I think I'm pretty smart. I think I'm pretty clever. But there's a lot that you hone in on when you finish your education.

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.