It’s a great thing about being pregnant – you don’t need excuses to pee or to eat.

Yes, Mother. I can see you are flawed. You have not hidden it. That is your greatest gift to me.

I was brought up to believe that the worst thing you could do was ‚call attention to yourself,‘ or ‚think you were smart.‘ My mother was an exception to this rule and was punished by the early onset of Parkinson’s disease.

There’s something wrong with a mother who washes out a measuring cup with soap and water after she’s only measured water in it.

All that I am, or hope to be, I owe to my angel mother.

After momma gave birth to 12 of us kids, we put her up on a pedestal. It was mostly to keep Daddy away from her.

If there’s a pregnancy rumor, people will find out it’s not true when you wind up not being pregnant, like nine months from now, and if there’s a house rumor, they’ll find out it’s not true when you are actively not ever spotted at that house.

I had my first baby at twenty-one.

I had a C-section, and I found it fascinating. I didn’t find it a sacrifice, and I didn’t find it a painful experience. I found it a fascinating miracle of what a body can do.

When I get up and work out, I’m working out just as much for my girls as I am for me, because I want them to see a mother who loves them dearly, who invests in them, but who also invests in herself. It’s just as much about letting them know as young women that it is okay to put yourself a little higher on your priority list.

When I was four, my mother insisted I get out of the car and find my own way home. Although I got lost, I did find my way home. It taught me the value of independence at an early age.

I think many people in my community had very different kinds of mothers: they had mothers who acquiesced in the system of male and white-supremacist domination, and my mother never did. She just could not do it. It just wasn’t in her.

If a woman can, by careful selection of a father and nourishment of herself, produce a citizen with efficient senses, sound organs and a good digestion, she should clearly be secured a sufficient reward for that natural service to make her willing to undertake and repeat it.

I’ve always wanted a baby.

I became the kind of parent my mother was to me.

At Columbia Law School, my professor of constitutional law and federal courts, Gerald Gunther, was determined to place me in a federal court clerkship, despite what was then viewed as a grave impediment: On graduation, I was the mother of a 4-year-old child.

I always tried to do things by example, even though I was not a very good mother regarding routines and family life.

Because I am a mother, I am capable of being shocked: as I never was when I was not one.

There’s nothing better than having a baby. I’ve always loved children. I used to work summers at the YMCA and be in charge of, like, 30 preschool kids. I knew that when I had a child, I’d be overwhelmed, and it’s true… I can’t tell you how much my attitude has changed since we’ve got Frances. Holding my baby is the best drug in the world.

I sing seriously to my mom on the phone. To put her to sleep, I have to sing ‚Maria‘ from West Side Story. When I hear her snoring, I hang up.

While I believed deeply in my husband’s vision for this country… and I was certain he would make an extraordinary President… like any mother, I was worried about what it would mean for our girls if he got that chance. How would we keep them grounded under the glare of the national spotlight?

If your mom cries a lot, you probably cry a lot. It’s what you learn.

There’s people constantly asking you for something on set, so the multi-tasking of motherhood transfers very well to being a director. And I think you’re compassionate.

My mother did not like children.

I like trying to get pregnant. I’m not so sure about childbirth.

Who in their infinite wisdom decreed that Little League uniforms be white? Certainly not a mother.

I always say I’m one of the toughest mama’s boys you’re ever gonna meet. And I say that to send a message to all the young thugs out there; that it’s nothing to be ashamed of to say you love your mother.

Never go to your high school reunion pregnant or they will think that is all you have done since you graduated.

Mother is the name for God in the lips and hearts of little children.

My greatest blessing has been the birth of my son. My next greatest blessing has been my ability to turn people into children of mine.

I’m just wanting to make the proper breakfast and keep the house. That’s my passion. At the request of my kids, I’m taking cooking classes. As I go to sleep at night, I think, ‚Did I do a great job as a mom, or was that an average day?‘

Women have always been the strong ones of the world. The men are always seeking from women a little pillow to put their heads down on. They are always longing for the mother who held them as infants.

You see, at the end of the day, my most important title is still ‚mom-in-chief.‘ My daughters are still the heart of my heart and the center of my world.

Mothers are fonder than fathers of their children because they are more certain they are their own.

No mother would ever willingly sacrifice her sons for territorial gain, for economic advantage, for ideology.

I do not think that I am a natural born mother… If I ever wanted to mother anyone, it was my father.

The influence of a mother upon the lives of her children cannot be measured. They know and absorb her example and attitudes when it comes to questions of honesty, temperance, kindness, and industry.

A mother defends herself with a heart filled with love before doing so with words. I wonder whether there is any love for the church in the hearts of those who pay so much attention to the scandals.

My mother raised me with God. We were poor financially, but we were rich spiritually.

My mother loved children – she would have given anything if I had been one.

When a father puts in long hours at work, he’s praised for being dedicated and ambitious. But when a mother stays late at the office, she’s sometimes accused of being selfish, neglecting her kids.

I got the stern end of the stick. It was kind of that iron fist. I am who I am today because of my mother.

People wonder aloud about whether I am an okay mother. That is obviously painful because it’s so important to me. It’s hard to hear that people think I’m not a capable mother and a good person, that they just think I’m nuts.

He didn’t come out of my belly, but my God, I’ve made his bones, because I’ve attended to every meal, and how he sleeps, and the fact that he swims like a fish because I took him to the ocean. I’m so proud of all those things. But he is my biggest pride.

For an Ethiopian mother, if you have a chubby kid, it means you’re doing something good.

My mother was very strong. Once, she picked up a coconut and smashed it against my father’s head. It taught me about women defending themselves and not collapsing in a heap.

I can encourage my daughter to love her body, but what really matters are the observations she makes about my relationship with my own body.

Only God Himself fully appreciates the influence of a Christian mother in the molding of character in her children.

I love our daughters more than anything in the world – more than life itself. And while that may not be the first thing that some folks want to hear from an Ivy-league-educated lawyer, it is truly who I am. So for me, being Mom-in-Chief is, and always will be, job number one.

I never had a mother. I suppose a mother is one to whom you hurry when you are troubled.

We were never intimate mother and children while she was our mother – but… when she became our child, the affection came.

It may be possible to gild pure gold, but who can make his mother more beautiful?

Any other woman who has to go to work and pick up the kids and make dinner – that’s way harder than what I have to do.

My momma didn’t clean up floors so I could be a thug… so I could wear my pants down.

I’ve never lived my life in the opinion of others. I believe I’m a good person. I believe I’m a good mom. But that’s for my kids to decide, not for the world.

I was raised by a mother who told me I was great every day of my life.

I was raised by strong women, and that DNA is in my daughter and wife.

Being a housewife and a mother is the biggest job in the world, but if it doesn’t interest you, don’t do it – I would have made a terrible mother.

There was never a child so lovely but his mother was glad to get him to sleep.

I have a feeling that I make a very good friend, and I’m a good mother, and a good sister, and a good citizen. I am involved in life itself – all of it. And I have a lot of energy and a lot of nerve.

My mom, she was a very, very soft woman. It was hard for her to yell or even curse. But when it came to fighting for her kids, she found a strength she didn’t always know she had.