She stood in the storm, and when the wind did not blow her way, she adjusted her sails.

I have a lot that I intend to do in this life.

It’s just a part of our nature to hope.

Growing up in an Italian family, you use a harsh tone and 10 minutes later everybody forgets about it.

Whenever anyone pulls out of the race, you know, unless they’ve just been trounced in the days before, there’s also – always a lot of questions about why that happened.

I’m not just a cuckolded wife.

Almost everybody embraces life.

I’m a recovering lawyer. The practice of law has changed. Every agreement is a fight.

I’m actually one of those people who get up energetic in the morning.

One of the things that I think you see sometimes in politics is a certain degree of caution. It’s usually advised by consultants who don’t want to see you march to the end of a limb.

You all know that I have been sustained throughout my life by three saving graces – my family, my friends, and a faith in the power of resilience and hope. These graces have carried me through difficult times and they have brought more joy to the good times than I ever could have imagined.

I think being an effective First Lady is first of all being the partner that your husband needs.

What happened after Katrina is that people were stirred to action; there were an enormous number of contributions by people trying to make a difference. But then we forget. We’ve forgotten Katrina victims, we’ve forgotten the face of poverty.

The days of our lives, for all of us, are numbered. We know that. And yes, there are certainly times when we aren’t able to muster as much strength and patience as we would like. It’s called being human.

I love my books.

Every parent has gone through a period when their child wasn’t so happy with them.

I can’t turn on the television without seeing me, or open the newspaper without seeing me and, honestly, I’m sick to death of me.

You have to have enough respect for other human beings to leave their lives alone. If you admire that life, build it for yourself. Don’t just try to come in and take somebody else‘s life.

I think that we’re foolhardy to not be engaging in federal funding of stem-cell research in the most aggressive way we possibly can.

I could be wrong, but I think heterosexual marriage is threatened more by heterosexuals. I don’t know why gay marriage challenges my marriage in any way.

You never know when something‘s going to hit you in a particular way and just knock you loose.

Having bought furniture for my own house, and bought furniture for our house in Washington, a furniture store seemed like a good idea, and it also played into my personal history.

Part of resilience is deciding to make yourself miserable over something that matters, or deciding to make yourself miserable over something that doesn’t matter.

I have three living children for whom this is a father who I want them to love and on whom they’re going to have to rely if my disease takes a bad turn.

Everybody has their burdens, their grief that they carry with them.

Cancer is not a straight line. It’s up and down.

I’ve often said that the most important thing you can give your children is wings. Because, you’re not gonna always be able to bring food to the nest. You’re… sometimes… they’re gonna have to be able to fly by themselves.

I want to live.

But I have found that in the simple act of living with hope, and in the daily effort to have a positive impact in the world, the days I do have are made all the more meaningful and precious. And for that I am grateful.

The military is already sexually integrated.

I am imperfect in a million ways, but I always thought I was the kind of woman, the kind of wife to whom a husband would be faithful.

It takes a lot of work to put together a marriage, to put together a family and a home.

I have a husband who adores me.

Part of what I want to do is sort of reclaim my story – it belongs to me and to my children, who have to live with whoever their mother is.

I don’t know why someone else’s marriage has anything to do with me.

We were never a family that had a lot. We had enough, but not a lot.

We have a middle class that lives on a razor blade. So sometimes when you say poverty, you neglect a large portion of the population.

People find it a great blessing if their child left behind a child.

I’m not worried about me or what’s going to happen to me.

Resilience is accepting your new reality, even if it’s less good than the one you had before.

A lot of sad stories in a row – that wears on you.

Concentrate on the things that matter to you.

I come out of real life.

Honestly, I get energized by the crowds. They feed me emotionally.

If you know someone who has lost a child, and you’re afraid to mention them because you think you might make them sad by reminding them that they died-you’re not reminding them. They didn’t forget they died. What you’re reminding them of is that you remembered that they lived, and that is a great gift.

Everybody makes personal decisions that are right for them and if you’re in political life, you’re used to having those analyzed.

I have an obligation to try to live as long as I can for my family.

I want to reclaim who I am.

I was an English major in college, and then I went to graduate school in English at the University of North Carolina for three years.

My job as the mother of daughters is to make sure my children see that every opportunity is available to them.