Jodi Kantor Quotes

Michelle has had to grapple with Hilary Clinton's legacy as First Lady... Michelle Obama never wants to be seen as the kind of First Lady who is overly involved in the West Wing.

Old women especially are invisible. I have been to parties where no one knows who I am, so I am ignored until I introduce myself to someone picked at random. Immediately, word gets round, and I am surrounded by people who tell me they are my biggest fans.

First Ladies have been through a lot by the time their husbands get to the Presidency.

The label 'wife of the prime minister' is like a giant signboard pointing at my head from a Monty Python sketch. But I am not Mrs. Prime Minister. I'm a human being.

Historically, the most favorably viewed figure in any administration is the first lady, regardless of her husband's popularity. That is largely because first ladies avoid the political fray and are ritualistically presented as a warm, human presence in the White House.

I've gone from, you know, being too close to politicians, to being too close to entertainers, and people's father that I'm not.

Presidents often disappoint, but first ladies rarely do.

The great majority of men, especially in France, both desire and possess a fashionable woman, much in the way one might own a fine horse - as a luxury befitting a young man.

First Ladies have always been held like specimens under a media microscope.

The more you are talked about the less powerful you are.

The problems with First Ladies is that you have to set the standard. My role is to be both star and slave.

It's easier to make fun of a first lady than for a first lady to have fun. The scrutiny is ferocious.

Michelle Obama has gone from political skeptic to political partner to a woman with a White House agenda of her own, and an approval rating higher than the president's.

There is this power that comes with being famous.

I was never invited to the White House.

I had my Aunt Rosie, who was famous and then not, so I got a lesson in fame early on. And I understood how little it has to do with you. And also how you could use it.

In France a woman will not go to sleep until she has talked over affairs of state with her lover or her husband.

I'm not wild about the term “first lady.” I'd just like to be called Laura Bush

No White House staff person wants to conflict with the First Lady who goes home and has the ear of the President all night.

I see there is a people risen that I cannot win with gifts or honours, offices or places; but all other sects and people I can.

High-level political wives are by no means new. In the 18th and 19th centuries, when patricians dominated British political life, it was common for politicians' spouses to play an active political role.

The phenomenon of fame is literally invisible, but it influences and dominates your life if you aren't careful.

The life of the President's First Lady would not have been for me. And I don't know how I would have been as a housewife.

Visibility has an effect on those who are privileged; it brings more privilege, and on those who are marginalized, it brings more marginalization, because it also brings a spotlight onto them where they're at, in the hood or in certain places that are less tolerable.

The journalistic and political classes are very eager to borrow the cultural authority of comedians when it suits them, sending out gala invitations and posing for photos in hopes that a bit of that edgy satirical shine will rub off on them.