“And she would often tell Barack, "So long as you kids do well, Bar, that's all that really matters."”
2010s, Democratic National Convention speech (2012)
Context: Barack's grandmother started out as a secretary at a community bank, and she moved quickly up the ranks, but like so many women, she hit a glass ceiling. And for years, men no more qualified than she was – men she had actually trained – were promoted up the ladder ahead of her, earning more and more money while Barack's family continued to scrape by. But day after day, she kept on waking up at dawn to catch the bus... arriving at work before anyone else... giving her best without complaint or regret. And she would often tell Barack, "So long as you kids do well, Bar, that's all that really matters."
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Michelle Obama 108
lawyer, writer, wife of Barack Obama and former First Lady … 1964Related quotes
What Made America Famous?
Song lyrics, Verities & Balderdash (1974)
Elmira Star Gazette (1973), Interview with Jane Roberts, quoted on p. 14 of Susan M. Watkins' Speaking of Jane Roberts (2001)
“It does not matter how long you live, but how well you do it.”
Reply to a young actress who asserted that an older actor in a production showed too much affection for the leading man (c. 1910); as reported by Alan Dent in Mrs. Patrick Campbell, p. 78 (1961).
[horses]Variants: "My dear, I don't care what they do, so long as they don't do it in the street and frighten the horses."
"I don’t mind where people make love, so long as they don't do it in the street and frighten the horses."
"It doesn't make any difference what you do in the bedroom as long as you don't do it in the street and frighten the horses."
"Does it really matter what these affectionate people do, so long as they don't do it on the street and frighten the horses?"
On the internet, a similar comment regarding politicians has been widely attributed to Victor Hugo, but without any definite sources. It appears to be a modern satirical invention, derived from Mrs. Campbell's statements.
"2017 Maps of Meaning 12: Final: The Divinity of the Individual" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6V1eMvGGcXQ&t=0s
Lectures
The Story of the Ballad of the Devil's Backbone Tavern.
Near Truths and Hotel Rooms (2003)
Context: (Spoken) You get out in the desert and there's no signs. And of course it was just me and all my friends, it was all guys in the car, so we drove about another two and a half hours before we ever pulled over and asked anybody where we was. And we were on this thing called the Devil's Backbone Highway, right, so we finally pull into this place uniquely named "The Devil's Backbone Tavern." We go in, and all the guys say I gotta go in, you know. And so I go in there, and it's one of them bars, like everyone's drinking beer and there are like, say, twenty people in there and they have maybe, say, seventeen teeth total in the whole place. And I'm not a good fighter, or very good at protecting myself at all, you know! And I thought, well this could - this may not work out. So I saw behind the bar there was this one older woman; she looked like she was in her eighties and she kinda hunched over like I remember my grandma started to do, she kinda, she had curly white hair, and she's all... I thought, well, I could take her...
The Crying of Lot 49 (1966)