I don't feel that because I'm First Lady, I'm very different from what I was before. It can happen to anyone. After all, it has happened to anyone.

I had thought I would hate being First Lady... I loved it.

What man could afford to pay for all the things a wife does, when she's a cook, a mistress, a chauffeur, a nurse, a baby-sitter? But because of this, I feel women ought to have equal rights, equal Social Security, equal opportunities for education, an equal chance to establish credit.

You can make it, but it's easier if you don't have to do it alone.

I think it wasn't so much that the White House altered me in any essential way as that I found the resources with which to respond to a series of challenges. You never know what you can do until you have to do it. In the beginning, it was like going to a party you're terrified of, and finding out to your amazement that you're having a good time.

My makeup wasn't smeared, I wasn't disheveled, I behaved politely, and I never finished off a bottle, so how could I be alcoholic?

Being a lady does not require silence.