I saw Obama's thought process behind the few moments of free time he had and how he used them. So, I knew that him taking the time to call me meant he really cared and really deeply understood how upset I was. That's what made it so meaningful.

I didn't have a ton of role models back in 1998. So, when I was looking to get in, it was really just looking up at all the men who were out there. When you're not seeing women - when you're breaking into anything - it's like, "Well, this is what the men do and how they act, so we're going to just emulate that behavior."

When you travel with the president, especially when you are traveling to foreign countries, the people that you travel with really become your family pretty quick. ... Most of the people who travel with me, they knew when I would get a stomachache.

I wanted young women to know that I was very lucky that I worked for people who literally let me be me. If I had ever been anyone other than me, I would have come off as a fake, a phony, a fraud, and never would have gotten where I ultimately ended up. You can be yourself and be in politics, and they should know that. That was kind of why I wanted to do it - because I didn't see any freaks in politics like me.

I think that if you look at all of the books that have ever been written about people working in the White House, they're sort of the opposite of my book. And I think that so many people want to write a book that sort of memorializes their place in history. And I wanted to write something for all of the women who are like me. I grew up in upstate New York, I graduated high school with 70 other people and didn't ever know that anything like this would have really been an option for me. So I wanted other young women — and men — to know that just being you is plenty.

I don't think that Donald Trump treated Hillary any differently than he treated Ted Cruz or Marco Rubio. He is a deeply disrespectful person who didn't have enough reverence for the office he was running for to act humane.

Is there a reason there's not a tampon dispenser in the West Wing basement?" And it was like, "No." Nobody had really just ever thought about putting it there. It's an important story to tell because, well, it was important to do because we needed them, but I think that it's more, like, you should always ask questions.