If people believe you're on their side, they will trust your decisions.

When I joined Bill Clinton's start-up presidential campaign in 1991, I was confident that women would play an ever more important role, but I never gave a minute's thought to what would happen if we won. When we did - and I became the first woman to serve as White House press secretary - it changed my life. But it didn't change the world.

Women have to be the biggest champions in the world of other women's choices.

Clinton's resilience became sort of the secret weapon of the campaign. He was never going to just give up and get out.

No reporter is flying around in borrowed twin-engine airplanes.

The exposed nature of life in the public square affects leaders' attitudes toward risk - and failure.

Washington is still very much a male-oriented culture. Being from Los Angeles, I think it is less so there - there is less attachment to tradition, perhaps, there is more flexibility, more acceptance of change generally. That is partly because of Hollywood.