Gail Collins Quotes

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

Theodore Roosevelt had drawn public attention to his attractive family in order to create a bond with ordinary Americans. Eleanor Roosevelt had successfully broached the idea that a First Lady could be nearly as much a public figure as her husband.

Someday, someone will follow in my footsteps and preside over the White House as the President's spouse. And I wish him well.

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

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

Mrs. Johnson was one of our most important First Ladies. Quietly but firmly, she advised LBJ on rhetoric, strategy, and personal relations and helped to dampen his volatile mood swings.

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 was born in 1976. I grew up in a traditional Mexican family. As a child, I had a pretty normal life: I would go to school, play with my friends and cousins. But then my father became President of Mexico, and my life changed.

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.

My job is being 'Mrs. Ronald Reagan.'

Being First Lady is playing supporting act. I am not seeking notoriety and I am not seeking to grab the limelight.

Somewhere out in this audience may even be someone who will one day follow my footsteps, and preside over the White House as the president's spouse. I wish him well!

Once a president gets to the White House, the only audience that is left that really matters is history.

Jackie O was so capable in so many ways. Hillary tried to redefine the role when she got into public policy, and Michelle Obama is able to move smoothly between form and function, style and substance.

Both Kennedy and Obama exuded a dash of glamour in their roles as commander-in-chief and became the darlings of Hollywood. As president, each brought to the White House a fashionable and accomplished First Lady, two adorable young children and scene-stealing pets.

No man will ever carry out of the Presidency the reputation which carried him into it.

I discovered that Robert Todd Lincoln was there for each of the first three assassinations. I wanted to write about the Lincoln Memorial, so when I found out he had attended its dedication, that helped focus it further.

I'm a nice middle-class girl in real life, and I'm a mom and a grandma, and I usually play sweet characters.

It has been a habit of presidents to try to write their own history, to establish themselves as a legitimate embodiment of America's past and shaper of America's future.

Theodore Roosevelt may have invented the sound byte.

Richard M. Nixon ... has a deeper concern for his place in history than for the people he governs. And history will not fail to note that fact.

I've just been elected and right now we'll have a honeymoon with Congress... I'll have a good chance to get my program through.... But after I make my recommendations, I'm going to lose the power and authority I have because that's what happened to President Woodrow Wilson, to President Roosevelt and to Truman and to Kennedy. Every day that I'm in office ... I'll be losing part of my ability to be influential.... So I want you guys to get off your asses and do everything possible to get ... my program passed as soon as possible, before the aura and halo that surround me disappear.

If you go with me on this one, 200 years from now, school will only remember the names of two great Republicans, Lincoln and Dirkson.

The men who have had great vision in the White House are those who are most enduring in the minds of the public. America loves visionary Presidents.

Sometimes a President seems greater after he has left office than while he was in it.