Cellobows

“So many of us go through life with our stories hidden, feeling ashamed or afraid when our whole truth doesn't live up to some established ideal. We grow up with messages that tellus that there's only one way to be American - that if our skin is dark or our hips are wide, if we don't experience love in a particular way, if we speak another language or come from another country, then we don't belong. That is, until someone dares to start telling that story differently.”
― Michelle Obama, Becoming

“I endured misery for the sake of appearances.”
― Michelle Obama, Becoming

“There are portraits of me and Barack now hanging in the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, a fact that humbles us both. I doubt that anyone looking at our two childhoods, our circumstances, would ever have predicted we'd land in those halls. The paintings are lovely, but what matters most is that they're there for young people to see - that our faces help dismantle the perception that in order to be enshrined in history, you have to look a certain way.”
― Michelle Obama, Becoming

“For me, becoming isn't about arriving somewhere or achieving a certain aim. I see it instead as forward motion, a means of evolving, a way to reach continuously toward a better self. The journey doesn't end. I became a mother, but I still have a lot to learn from and give to my children. I became a wife, but I continue to adapt to and be humbled by what it means to truly love and make a life with another person. I have become, by certain measures, a person of power, and yet there are moments still when I feel insecure or unheard.”
― Michelle Obama, Becoming