I come here tonight as a sister, blessed with a brother who is my mentor, my protector and my lifelong friend. I come here as a wife who loves my hus… - Michelle Obama

This may be the fundamental problem with caring a lot about what others think: It can put you on the established path — the my-isn’t-that-impressive path — and keep you there for a long time.

The size of our hips, our style, our swag, it becomes co-opted but then we are demonised... My advice to young women is that you have to start by getting those demons out of your head. The questions I ask myself — "am I good enough?" — that haunts us, because the messages that are sent from the time we are little is: maybe you are not, don't reach too high, don't talk too loud.

You can't handle goody bags. Let me explain the goody bag thing. You have to go into the party store and choose the bags. Then you have to choose what to put in the bags, and what is in the boys' bags has to be different from what is in the girls' bags. You'd walk in there and wander around the aisles for an hour, and then your head would explode.