Kantor Quotes & Sayings

I guess there were things about the Obamas I discovered that I do think are universal to marriage. I found it very interesting in my reporting that their most difficult periods in the White House almost never seemed to coincide. When one was down, the other one was holding it together. In my experience, that's true of marriage generally. — Jodi Kantor

I wanted to kill someone and I wanted to die and I wanted to run as far and as fast as I could because she was never coming back. She had fallen off the face of the earth and she was never coming back. — Melissa Kantor

There are some things you worry about. And then there are some things you don't worry about. You don't worry about them because they're too awful to contemplate worrying about. — Melissa Kantor

Sometimes it's hard to hear when we've done something wrong. But we can learn from our mistakes. — Melissa Kantor

People never think things that are true are funny. — Melissa Kantor

Michelle Obama has gone from political skeptic to political partner to a woman with a White House agenda of her own, and an approval rating higher than the president's. — Jodi Kantor

I was just thoughts, just air. There was nothingness all around me. Was this what it was like to be dead? When you died, did you still sense everything going on around you, only it was happening so far away that you didn't care about it? You were floating through space and time, and nothing that happened to you mattered because nothing really could happen to you because you didn't exist? — Melissa Kantor

Be honest, Do I give off a vibe that says 'No, handsome stud, I don't want you to make a pass at me,' while at the same time communicating, 'Hello there, acne-ridden dwarf. Promise me we'll meet again. — Melissa Kantor

Interpreting anyone's marriage - a neighbor's, let alone the president's - is extremely difficult. And yet, examining the first couple's relationship - their negotiations of public and private life, of conflicts and compromises - offers hints about Barack Obama the president, not just Barack Obama the husband. — Jodi Kantor

But Americans have also exercised an additional option for decades: make fun of something. The Constitution does not guarantee Americans the right to satirize or parody, but it does guarantee freedom of expression and the right to bear arms. When those last two items are put together and sprinkled with a heavy dose of wit, Americans have created a form of humor that both ennobles and destroys its subject at the same time. — Michael Kantor

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

Leaders are more powerful role models when they learn than when they teach. — Rosabeth Moss Kantor

You were sleeping?" said Princess One.
"No," I said. "Sometimes I just like to lie in the dark for hours with my eyes closed. — Melissa Kantor

Even though we'd never met, imagining being dumped by Gene made me want to die. What was the point of going out with someone? What was the point of falling in love? The whole thing was enough to make me wish I'd been born in one of those countries where they still have arranged marriages. I mean, okay, yes, it would certainly suck not being allowed to drive or vote and having to ask a man's permission to leave the house.
But at least you wouldn't have to worry about being dumped. — Melissa Kantor

Looking back at that conversation, I can't help wondering: Did I know? Did I know what was coming, and did I think that as long as I wouldn't let Livvie say the words, they wouldn't be true? — Melissa Kantor

Tonight was a perfect illustration of why Cinderella and the Prince get married twenty-four hours after they meet. Because when you're living with your stepmother, there is no happily ever after. — Melissa Kantor

I hate gender stereotypes like girls love princesses and boys like guns ... my point is that tying particular behaviors and interests to particular gender seems to be the major reason guys who like dance get called names. — Melissa Kantor

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. — Jodi Kantor

Life would be so much simpler if guys were like mood rings, and they changed color when they liked you. — Melissa Kantor

Prince Charming was requesting my presence tonight. — Melissa Kantor

I spent a lot of time in the White House in the public areas where reporters are allowed to go, but I spoke to people about the private quarters as well. Some of the things I learned were small, novelistic details. For example, the fact that there were still pet stains on the carpets from the Bush cats when the Obamas moved in. — Jodi Kantor

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

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. — Jodi Kantor

After all, what did Prince Charming know about Cinderella besides her shoe size? — Melissa Kantor

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. — Jodi Kantor

It is necessary to recover the primeval force of the shock taking place at the moment when opposite a man (the viewer) there stood for the first time a man (the actor) deceptively similar to us, yet at the same time infinitely foreign, beyond an impassable barrier. — Tadeusz Kantor

There is nothing that makes the unbearable bearable. — Melissa Kantor

Apparently being Cinderella isn't so bad after all. — Melissa Kantor

Because if I have a wicked stepmother and two evil stepsisters, aren't I supposed to get a prince? — Melissa Kantor

Every presidential candidate highlights patriotism, but Mr. Romney's is backed by the Mormon belief that the United States was chosen by God to play a special role in history, its Constitution divinely inspired. — Jodi Kantor

Why take the risk? Surely somebody would invent a crystal ball to tell you whether or not a relationship would work out before it started. — Melissa 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. — Jodi Kantor

If I was going to do something, I wanted to give my life over to it, to love it, to wake up in the morning for it like I had for dance. — Melissa Kantor

Nothing.
That's what happens to the stepmother in Cinderella.
Nothing. — Melissa Kantor

I would say that Barack Obama has always been a real optimist about what can be accomplished. He believes that government can be used to create systemic, long-term, real change. And the first lady is more of a skeptic. — Jodi Kantor

Because if anything can make death feel like a truly desirable alternative, it's getting dumped. — Melissa Kantor

Nineteen months ago, he mourned, partridges were here. Nineteen months ago the open pine forest was compassionate. What rare concentrated tragedies will have occurred within another nineteen months - not here, for this place has bred a tragedy greater than any recorded in the Nation's past - but elsewhere, all over the South, through back roads and on wharves and in legislative rooms, in foundries which rust because the fires have gone out? — MacKinlay Kantor

Sometimes, when you look at an adviser's failings or perceived failings, I think the tough question you have to ask as a journalist is, 'What does this say about the president?' — Jodi Kantor

I realize that," said Ms. Daniels. "Unfortunately, hard work is not always enough. — Melissa Kantor

This is the worst thing that will ever happen, I thought, and as I stared into Olivia's enormous green eyes, I knew she was thinking the same thing. This is the worst thing that will happen to us in our entire lives. — Melissa Kantor

You two look like salt and pepper shakers. That's what my mom use to say when we both had long hair. You're a couple of salt and pepper shakers. And now here I was, just a stupid lonely pepper shaker. What was the point of a pepper shaker without a salt shaker? I didn't even like pepper. — Melissa Kantor

And suddenly I started to cry. Serious sobs, the kind where your stomach hurts and you can't breathe and there's snot running down your face. I was crying so hard I couldn't even mute the sounds I was making, and Luke put his hand on my back and I thought about how everyone would think that I was crying because of Stacy's fucking speech and I wanted to kill someone. I wanted to kill someone and I wanted to die and I wanted to run as far and as fast as I could. — Melissa Kantor

For years, every moment I wasn't dancing was a moment I was waiting to dance. — Melissa Kantor

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

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. — Jodi Kantor

I'm sorry, I got you all snotty and wet. — Melissa Kantor

And a bunch of the other guys on the football team would be teaching kids how to bench-press or tackle or rape or whatever it was that football players knew how to do well. — Melissa Kantor

Time does not care how precious it is, how hard you are working not to squander it. Time passes. — Melissa Kantor

Those close to Mr. Obama say he grows irritated at being misunderstood - not just by opponents who insinuate that he caters to African-Americans, but also by black lawmakers and intellectuals who fault him for not making his presidency an all-out assault on racial disparity. — Jodi Kantor

TEN BREAKUP COMMANDMENTS:
1. Move out
2. You cannot be friends
3. Do not process this break-up together
4. Do not bad mouth your ex to other people
5. Get rid of anything that reminds of him
6. Start and exercise regimen
7. Pursue an interest you could not have pursued while you and your ex were together
8. Take a vacation
9. Embrace Change
10. Go on a date — Melissa Kantor

What if in every breakup, the dumper gets to live happily ever after, while the dumpee gets a lifetime membership in the Bitter Book Club? — Melissa Kantor

Why is it I can spend a dozen Friday nights staring at the peeling walls of my "room" without anyone in the family so much as poking a head down to see if I'm alive, while the one time I actually have plans (major plans, plans that necessitate extraordinary focus and massive preparation), my stepmother suddenly suggests we sing a duet of "Getting to Know You"? — Melissa Kantor

And then I thought that it wasn't fair that at seventeen you could make choices that you might regret for the rest of your life because you really had no idea what you were doing and the stakes were just too high. — Melissa Kantor

There was no way that sentence was coming out of my mouth. — Melissa Kantor

There's no going back, and there's no hiding the information. So let everyone have it. — Andrew Kantor

[W]hen I told my dad why I was calling, he just said, 'Honey, you're so beautiful it doesn't matter what you wear.' I wondered how many dads in America were, at that very moment, giving their daughters the same useless advice mine was giving me. — Melissa Kantor

First ladies, you know, we look at Michelle Obama, and we look at most first ladies, and they seem like they have it all. You know, they live in the White House, they go to state dinners, they ride on Air Force One, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. But first ladies do often feel that they are given short shrift or forgotten or left at the margins. — Jodi Kantor

If love was a disease, I'd been cured. — Melissa Kantor

Therefore, while social phobics and patients with AvPD both avoid out of fear, the social phobic's fears mainly arise in the clinical context of feeling, or actually being called upon to perform in ways ranging from giving a speech to urinating in a public washroom. In contrast the avoidant's fears generally arise in the context of interpersonal relationships, the main marker I look for in making the diagnosis of AvPD. — Martin Kantor

Apparently, he was too busy living his own life to be a character in the imaginary novel that was mine. — Melissa Kantor