My ability to get through my day greatly depends on the relationship that I have with other women...We have to be able to champion other women. We have to root for each other's successes and not delight in one another's failures.

We were so young, so in love, and so in debt.

To me, with age, everything has gotten better. You have way more control; you know yourself better.

You all have opportunities and skills and education that so many folks who came before you never could have dreamed of. So just imagine the kind of impact that you're going to make. Imagine how you can inspire those around you to reach higher and complete their own education.

After I got out of law school and worked in a big law firm, I thought, there are so many kids like me, in my neighborhood, that could be here if they had more support from their families, better financial aid. But the gap is so wide once you miss that opportunity. So I was always interested in figuring out, How do you bridge that? I felt, as a lawyer, when I was mentoring and working with kids, that I gained a level of groundedness that I just couldn't get sitting on the forty-seventh floor of a fancy firm.

I mean, hope doesn't get actualized in three and a half years. If that were the case, we'd be out of luck as a country.

Barack knows the American Dream because he's lived it...and he wants everyone in this country to have that same opportunity, no matter who we are, or where we're from, or what we look like, or who we love.