Quotes from Jodi Kantor

Michelle has had to grapple with Hilary Clinton's legacy as First Lady... Michelle Obama never wants to be seen as the kind of First Lady who is overly involved in the West Wing.

Candidates' wives are supposed to sit cheerfully through their husbands' appearances.

Evangelical Christian politicians who cheat often raise questions about hypocrisy, especially if they preached piety in public and disregarded it in private. When Jewish politicians fall, they shatter different expectations, particularly that American Jews need to work together to preserve respectability and fireproof against anti-Semitism.

I've learned that the best political reporters never make predictions!

I will say this: One thing I did see in my reporting again and again is that the Obamas themselves are much more involved in handling stories than is usually known.

One of my favorite stories is from Obama's first campaign: Michelle Obama was out there every day, collecting signatures and supervising the other people who did. If you were supposed to get 300 signatures and you only got 299, you had to face the wrath of Michelle.

When you work on a story like the Weinstein investigation, every other non-critical part of your life disappears. For months and months and months, my life basically consisted of my work and my kids, my work and my kids.

I really thought I wanted to be a lawyer, but then I had an epiphany when I was in law school and dropped out. I'd always been a journalism junkie, but I'd never had confidence to think that I could actually edit or write the stories.

People who face too many demands - two careers, two children - often scale back somehow. The Obamas scaled up.

It's not that Michelle Obama is trying to conceal her true feelings, it's that she does not want to be a political liability to her husband.

Michelle Obama is somebody who really wants to take the high road.

Interpreting anyone's marriage - a neighbor's, let alone the president's - is extremely difficult.

The prospect that I could actually be a journalist triggered a 'Who do you think you are?' reaction in me. It was only in going to law school and being unhappy there that I realized that I really, really had to try it.

Mr. Romney is quick to uphold rules great and small. During primary debates, when his rivals spoke out of turn or exceeded their allotted time, he would sometimes lecture them. When supporters ask Mr. Romney to sign dollar bills or American flags, he refuses and often gives them a little lesson about why doing so is against the law.

In interviews with dozens of black advisers, friends, donors and allies, few said they had ever heard Mr. Obama muse on the experience of being the first black president of the United States, a role in which every day he renders what was once extraordinary almost ordinary.