Giving homeless children the chance to be educated, giving them this ticket to their futures, is so wonderful. They will have the chance to not repeat the suffering of their childhoods in their own families. They can build secure and safe lives for themselves and their children.

A good book is like an unreachable itch. You just can't leave it alone.

An educated child is better equipped to handle all the challenges of life, from finding work to avoiding diseases like HIV/AIDS.

Diseases don't respect borders. You know, just at the edge of the American border, that isn't the edge of diseases. We need to be sure that we're looking worldwide. And it is in our security interest, as well as our moral interest, to pay attention to the rest of the world.

When you read with your child, you show them that reading is important, but you also show them they're important - that they are so important to you that you will spend 20 minutes a day with your arm around them.

If I'm just at the White House, I have meetings in my office, I sign letters, I plan different things. Late in the afternoon, I'll quit working and wait for my husband to get home.

The English language lacks the words 'to mourn an absence.' For the loss of a parent, grandparent, spouse, child or friend we have all manner of words and phrases, some helpful, some not. Still, we are conditioned to say something, even if it is only 'I am sorry for your loss.' But for an absence, for someone who was never there at all, we are wordless to capture that particular emptiness. For those who deeply want children and are denied them, those missing babies hover like silent, ephemeral shadows over their lives. Who can describe the feel of a tiny hand that is never held?