A biography for Maya Soetoro-Nghasn’t been written yet.
“Philosophically, I would say that I am Buddhist.”
“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.”
“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 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.”
“My whole family was Muslim, and most of the people I knew were Muslim.”
“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.”
“As children, we develop some scorn for our parents and their imperfections.”
“One of the things that I have my students do is to take a look at English-language newspapers from all around the world in order to see the different ways in which the same story might be told.”
“Mom was an academic, so the riches that she had to bestow were of the mind.”
“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.”
“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.”
“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 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.”
“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.”
“My brother loves this country deeply. He has laid down roots, and he has always been incredibly patriotic and committed to this country.”
“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.”