I don't like corporate diversity workshops.

You make real progress when somebody is honest enough to say something that's really uncomfortable. Of course when you're a candidate's wife and when you're first lady and the first African-American first lady to boot, that is very, very hard to do.

Candidates' wives are supposed to sit cheerfully through their husbands' appearances.

The Michelle Obama that her old friends remember, that people knew in Chicago, she was a really incisive social critic. She knew how to drive an argument home. People liked her both in the workplace and socially because she was so frank.

Every presidential candidate highlights patriotism, but Mr. Romneys is backed by the Mormon belief that the United States was chosen by God to play a special role in history, its Constitution divinely inspired.

Interpreting anyone's marriage - a neighbor's, let alone the president's - is extremely difficult.

Michelle Obama is somebody who really wants to take the high road.