Barack knows that we are going to have to make sacrifices; we are going to have to change our conversation; we're going to have to change our traditions, our history; we're going to have to move into a different place.

It's all about patience and persistence - you often have to expose a child to a new food numerous times before he or she will begin to like it. So keep trying!

In fact, in the last job I had before coming to the White House - I remember this clearly - I was on maternity leave with Sasha, still trying to figure out what to do with my life, and I got a call for an interview for this position, a senior position at the hospitals. And I thought, okay, here we go. So I had to scramble to look for babysitting, and couldn't find one.

Sometimes the issue is about whether families and communities think girls are even worthy of an education in the first place. It's about whether girls are valued only for their labor and reproductive capacities or for their minds as well. And it's about whether women are viewed as second-class citizens or as full human beings entitled to the same rights and opportunities as men.

We have had with Barack Obama some just amazing experiences traveling abroad, being able to introduce our children to the world.... I'm also humbled by the response and the receptiveness, not just here in America, but around the world. There's a part of that warmth and enthusiasm and hope that is surprising and humbling.

No, I think that if he had known he would be president, he would have started dying his hair, like, 10 years ago. Now it's too late.

My goal has always been to add value, not to be redundant, not to get in the way, but to do things that lift and move things forward in a very strategic and objective way so that there are real outcomes.