Quotes from Maya Soetoro-Ng

My brother loves this country deeply. He has laid down roots, and he has always been incredibly patriotic and committed to this country.

Mom was an academic, so the riches that she had to bestow were of the mind.

Philosophically, I would say that I am Buddhist.

You have to have a government that does give both money and energy to function in a leadership role modeling giving for the people. Government is supposed to lead by example in many cases.

Government should exist in order to help fortify the country and make those who are in need better able to meet their own.

It was as a mother that I needed my mother back, and I needed to conjure her anew and think about what she would have counselled and what she would have given.

We can do much to help our communities loosen their boundaries and begin to welcome a multitude of ways of being to make sure that individuals of mixed race, religion, or ethnicities don't feel the need to choose one or the other but see their layers as a gift, something that adds beauty.

My father saw Islam as a way to connect with the community. He never went to prayer services except for big communal events. I am absolutely certain that my father did not go to services every Friday. He was not religious.

The rich emotional tapestry of being a mother, becoming a mother, connects you to your own mother. I didn't realize how much I'd become her. I pass a mirror, and am surprised by how much I look like her.

We need to teach our children empathy and care and love and communication and social responsibility in preparation for adulthood.

We can't afford to live in isolation, and we need to teach our kids that the things that they do not only matter to others far away but impact others who live far away, and there are ripples of effect.

I've always kept a journal and brought storytelling into my teaching.

Being told that I looked like I belonged everywhere and to everyone helped me feel my fledgling pride in my own multiracialism.

I like that there are young people being given opportunities to explore and learn and grow and become themselves with a path that is associated with my mother. She would have liked that very much.

I don't think the White House has always reflected the textures and flavors of this country.

I absolutely do believe that we need to not be so myopic. We ought to throw open widely the windows on the world in order to learn more about it.

The facts are simply that my brother was born in the United States at the Kapiolani Hospital for Women and Children in 1961. His birth certificate has been authenticated by a number of sources.

You really need to love something or someone in order to work hard enough to be very successful. You have to believe in something and have a certain optimism. Faith and optimism come from love.

I'm a teacher, so much of what I'm doing remains in the abstract. But I also support a lot of educational initiatives that support kids to really get out there and work hard in their communities. But I also think that we need poets in our country to inspire.

I think it's true we look forward to enormous amounts of information, but I think we would be better off if we thought about the kinds of wisdom and thoughtfulness that we need in order to handle the amount of information ahead.

Barack himself is very much a regular guy, not a silver spoon, incredibly smart, but, you know, he's a scholarship kid, made good use of the resources that were available to him, worked incredibly hard.

I think we could benefit from world history that is specifically taught in a multi-faceted fashion that allows for an understanding that perspectives on truth can be very different.

As children, we develop some scorn for our parents and their imperfections.

You really need to love something or someone in order to work hard enough to be very successful. You have to believe in something and have a certain optimism.