Ann F. Lewis Quotes

You need a story, a scenario as First Lady.

I have been told by people that I should not be seen clubbing with good-looking women, but I can't see why not. Why be a pop star otherwise?

The first lady is, and always will be, an unpaid public servant elected by one person, her husband.

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

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.

People try to make women a very specific thing so that we like them.

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.

A man with a talent does what is expected of him, makes his way, constructs, is an engineer, a composer, a builder of bridges. It's the natural order of things that he construct objects outside himself and his family. The woman who does so is aberrant. We have to expiate for this cursed talent someone handed out to us, by mistake, in the black mystery of genetics.

Like it or not, women are always subject to criticism if they show too much feeling in public.

A man must know how to act in the face of opinion; a woman to submit to it.

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

All ladies arriving here as strangers it seems expect to be visited by the wives of the heads of the departments and even by the President’s wife. Mrs. Madison subjected herself to this torture, … but from which having begun the practice, she never found an opportunity of receding from.

The common man thinks that the marriage is like appointing one to do his work. The husband thinks so! The husband’s family thinks so. Every one thinks that a girl is coming to the family to do work. Even the girl’s family trains the girl to do the household work

I wish I could be three people. One of them would be in Washington holding teas and luncheons and attending any number of official social and charitable occasions. The second one could sit at a desk eight hours a day and really do her work as it should be done with proper care and attention given to each communication. She could see the people who want to talk about serious things and perhaps even be of some little use in helping other people to work out their plans. The third person could be a wife, mother … Oh well, somehow or other everything will get done but I am afraid nothing will be done very well!

There is no definition for the Role of the First Lady. It is a no win situation. She will be criticized no matter what she does or says.

A woman’s name should appear in print but twice—when she is married and when she is buried.

I was raised to think women had babies, stayed at home, and men worked. By the time I got ready to do it, I thought I had all the answers. Only somebody had changed the questions.

When you become first lady, it's like, 'O.K., now what do you do?'

Tradition is an element that enters into play with destiny, because you are born into a particular family - Jewish or Islamic or Christian or Mexican - and your family determines to some extent what you are expected to become. And society is always there attempting to determine the role we will play within it.

My mother's mantra was, 'How would it look to the neighbors?' And so you don't do anything because you're worried about how it would look to the neighbors.

I don't feel like a first lady.

There are certain expectations placed on writers if other people have put a value on their gender. I'm aware of the hundreds of tiny differences that happen when people are seeing your gender before they see something else.

The image is never created by you. It's created by the media, by the people around you. In my real-life self, I would be without make up and in jeans and a T-shirt. But when I'm outside, I'm dressed up. It's not because I enjoy doing it.

It's always been like this since the beginning of time. You interact with one female or somebody that people will think you'll cute with and everybody either assumes that you're dating or they want you date. It's just how it all works.

I don't believe that we - and this holds true for both genders - have as many choices as we seem to like to think.