One of the things that Michelle and I are proud of is that we came through the White House with our souls intact. Everybody has heard: Power corrupts. I do think if you are placed in such an artificial situation, and your office has great importance, there is a tendency for people to want to please you. To not be as honest with you. We fought against that.
Originally asked
The Guardian, to a different person each week, The Q&A
Verbatim recurring item in The Guardian Q&A; two fully readable publisher-hosted respondent pages establish institutional recurrence.
You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.
The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 19 August 2017 source ↗
Others on this question
View all 192 →That I was partially responsible for bringing some extraordinary human beings into the world, and they responded to me as a loving father.
The contentment I have now.
Professionally, receiving my first Grammy from Whitney Houston.
More from Siri Hustvedt
View profile →I was a floor model briefly at Bloomingdale’s in New York in 1979. I hated it. When no one was watching, I would lock myself in the toilet and read.
The man who asked me directions on the subway seven years ago: I am so sorry for sending you to Queens rather than to the Bronx.
I have a penchant for happiness. I have experienced euphoria before a migraine, which may not count, but I have also felt immense happiness leaning back in a chair in sunlight, puttering in my garden, reading, dancing, immediately after giving birth and when writing.
I would have articulated aloud the comments I too often suppressed out of deference to arrogant, condescending, sexist bores.
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