A Quote by Winnie Madikizela-Mandela
The life of the President's First Lady would not have been for me. And I don't know how I would have been as a housewife.
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Although the circumstances of our lives may seem very disengaged, with me standing here as the First Lady of the United States of America and you just getting through school, I want you to know we have very much in common. For nothing in my life ever would have predicted that I would be standing here as the first African-American First Lady.
The interesting thing is that it seems like George W. Bush would have been happy being the president of anything. He could have been president of Major League Baseball. Less people killed. It wouldn't have affected the world on a planetary level. Sure, there would have been little things. There would have been scandals and kind of numbskull things here and there .
I could have easily not run for president, and people would have come up and said, "Oh, man, you would have been a great president." Or even a lousy president. But I never would have known had I not chosen to run. Part of life is seizing the moment.
I would never know how that person felt when they first heard my song. They coulda been at rock bottom and my song could have literally been the thing that saved them, but I would never know that.
I've always been aware of both how extraordinarily normal and how extraordinarily extraordinary my life has been. It's always been important, first to my parents when I was younger, and now very much to me, to live in the world. I would never want to live in a cloister.
I don't know what else to tell you. I often think how different my life would have been - how much happier - if you'd been a part of it. One day.
I would have - I didn't really have to be an athlete. I could have been, you know - worked in fast food, been a janitor, anything. I would have had two or three jobs, working long hours, you know, to support myself and for my family in the future. I would have been successful.
There are some of us who think to ourselves, 'If I had only been there! How quick I would have been to help the Baby. I would have washed His linen. How happy I would have been to go with the shepherds to see the Lord lying in the manger!' Why don't we do it now? We have Christ in our neighbor.
For me, the word 'housewife,' because of, like, the 'Real Housewives' - I don't think housewife really means what it used to mean. To me, it's been a little bit overused to the point that it's not as loaded as it might be. I feel like in a perfect world we would say 'American Mom with Kids,' or something like that. 'Mom with Small Children.'
But if Maggie had been that young lady, you would probably have known nothing about her: her life would have had so few vicissitudes that it could hardly have been written; for the happiest women, like the happiest nations, have no history.
Donald Trump always used to say, "Oh, what have you been doing for 30 years?" And I always found that kind of odd because you could Google it and find out. And, you know, I've been a lawyer and I've been a First Lady and I've been a senator and I've been secretary of state.
For example, a man who might not have enormous charisma, who could be president 40 years ago, and who was a deserving president, I don't know that George Washington would be a president today, I don't know that Abe Lincoln would, I don't know that Roosevelt would.
If and when the Vatican is attacked by ISIS, which as everyone knows is ISIS's ultimate trophy, I can promise you that the pope would have only wished and prayed that Donald Trump would have been president because this would not have happened. ISIS would have been eradicated, unlike what is happening now with our all-talk-no-action politicians.
I can't imagine being mayor and not having had the experience working for President Clinton or President Obama, or, for that matter, working in Congress. On the other hand, I think I would have been a better adviser had I been mayor first. If I had had this job first, I could have seen the implications of things I was doing.
Throughout Ronnie's presidency, there was an ongoing public discussion as to how much influence the first lady should have on the president. It's hardly a new problem. As long as mankind has lived in groups, there's always been a question of how to handle the boss's wife.
I promised Todd [Willingham] that I would attend the execution. ... It was impossible for me to go. I was incapable of that sort of travel. Sitting in a chair that long, driving to Huntsville just wouldn't have happened. ... I'm sure I would have been there. It's something I know. I would not have denied him that, but the accident kept me from being there. At some level, the universe was giving me the excuse for not being there. ... The universe was like, "Oh, you don't have to watch this." ... It would have been a horrible thing, but I'm sure I would have gone.
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