First Women Quotes

“If you bungle raising your children, I don't think whatever else you do well matters very much - Jackie Kennedy”
― Kate Andersen Brower, First Women: The Grace and Power of America's Modern First Ladies

“While people are sorting through our shoes and our hair and whether we cut it or not . . . whether we have bangs . . . We take our bangs and we stand in front of important things that the world needs to see, and eventually people stop looking at the bangs and they start looking at what we are standing in front”
― Kate Andersen Brower, First Women

“It hurt so much when I lost my mother, I know how it feels.' Hilary told a friend whose mother had recently passed away. 'I will never get over it.' In a 2015 interview with ABC News, Hillary got emotional when she mentioned her mother, Dorothy Rodham, who died in 2011. Dorothy grew up in poverty and at eight years old she was sent from Chicago to California to live with her grandparents after her parents divorced. 'She told me every day you've got to get up and fight for what you believe in, no matter how hard it is. I think about her a lot, I miss her a lot. I wish she were her with me.”
― Kate Andersen Brower, First Women: The Grace and Power of America's Modern First Ladies

“I had learned that you were going to be criticized for whatever you did, so why not do what you wanted to do.”
― Kate Andersen Brower, First Women: The Grace and Power of America's Modern First Ladies

“I got real annoyed with myself for being so shy and quiet, and never having anything to say when asked to speak.”
― Kate Andersen Brower, First Women

“That’s why you’re married, you do things for the other person when you sense that they need you, even if you don’t know why they need you.”
― Kate Andersen Brower, First Women

“On June 5, 2004, President Reagan died. Right before his death, Nancy said, he turned to look directly at her, something that he had not done in more than a month. “Then he closed his eyes and went. And that was a wonderful gift.”
― Kate Andersen Brower, First Women

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― Kate Andersen Brower, First Women

“MODERN FIRST LADIES set their own dreams aside to support their husbands’ ambitions. But in the case of Hillary Clinton, she took a temporary detour to help her husband, but she never abandoned her own plans. She would not be content playing the role of supporting actor her entire life.”
― Kate Andersen Brower, First Women: The Grace and Power of America's Modern First Ladies

“On the tenth anniversary of her founding of the Betty Ford Center, President Ford said, “When the final tally is taken, her contributions to our country will be bigger than mine.” And that was just fine with him.”
― Kate Andersen Brower, First Women: The Grace and Power of America's Modern First Ladies

“Without the strength, support, and sheer star power of their wives, these men could not have reached the pinnacle of American politics.”
― Kate Andersen Brower, First Women: The Grace and Power of America's Modern First Ladies

“Mrs. Clinton, there’s a white man downstairs in a wheelchair in the Yellow Oval Room asking me for some Ronald Reagan souvenirs. He said he’s a Republican, not a Democrat.” The new First Lady laughed. “Yeah, I know, George, that’s my dad.”
― Kate Andersen Brower, First Women: The Grace and Power of America's Modern First Ladies

“Hillary wanted to have more influence than Nancy Reagan or Eleanor Roosevelt; she wanted a seat at the table, and her husband was eager to give it to her.”
― Kate Andersen Brower, First Women: The Grace and Power of America's Modern First Ladies

“First ladies are modern women with modern problems, joys, careers, doubts, insecurities, and crises. They are wives, working mothers, and political advisers who are transformed into international celebrities simply because of whom they chose to marry. They are often beloved, sometimes vilified, and they are almost always their husbands’ most trusted advisers.”
― Kate Andersen Brower, First Women: The Grace and Power of America's Modern First Ladies

“Just as presidents are part of a lifelong club, so too are first ladies: presidents are members of the world’s most selective fraternity, and first ladies are members of the world’s most elite sorority.”
― Kate Andersen Brower, First Women: The Grace and Power of America's Modern First Ladies

“While people are sorting through our shoes and our hair and whether we cut it or not . . . whether we have bangs . . . We take our bangs and we stand in front of important things that the world needs to see, and eventually people stop looking at the bangs and they start looking at what we are standing in front of.”
― Kate Andersen Brower, First Women