Quotes from Dee Dee Myers

The dirty little secret is that the pool man, who's making $30 000 a year, is subsidizing the million-dollar mortgage for the family whose pool he cleans. No wonder people want to get rid of tax breaks for corporate jets.

It never occurred to me that I wouldn't go to college and have a career - as well as a family - of my own. Both my parents, but especially my mother, encouraged me and led me to believe that it was possible.

I think how pay gets determined is pretty broad - experience, how people look, what they bring to the job. But there's no question women are paid less. Women don't ask.

Obama has made America cool again - and more than that, he's made his own brand arguably the most powerful the world has ever known.

I am endlessly fascinated that playing football is considered a training ground for leadership, but raising children isn't.

The thing about looking back over Clinton's presidency, and probably anybody's presidency, is that when you look back, the events all line up in a way that makes sense. At the time, you don't know where it's going.

I think a lot of presidents learn to be president by being president.

The press never accepts at face value that the President is taking a certain action because he wants to create jobs or because he believes that it is in the best interests of the American people or that he is genuinely committed to making life better for people.

That someone like Obama could be elected president of the United States - with its unrivaled power and prestige - has begun to restore the country's and the world's faith in America as the land of opportunity.

I look forward to a time, in the not so distant future, when we no longer look forward to 'firsts' as milestones women have yet to achieve, but we look back on them as historic events that continue to teach and inspire.

It was what became something of a pattern in the first couple of years of the Clinton White House and maybe even longer, where information would drip, drip, drip, drip, drip out which would keep stories alive, alive, alive.

My job is to be a spokesman - the spokesman, I suppose - for the President, for the White House, to do the daily briefings, to manage the press corps in terms of travel, day-to-day needs, access, interviews, all those issues.

No doubt, the White House thinks the American people know Obama's story. But since the Inauguration, we've seen only the president's present: his perfect family, his Ivy League elegance, his effortless mastery of complex issues. We never see him sweat. And we forget that he ever had to struggle.

After I left the White House, I kept a foothold in the business of American politics; as a talk-show host, analyst, commentator, speechmaker, and occasional writer. I was no longer a practitioner, but I was still a partisan, a Democrat, a blue-stater through and through.

The Obamas have changed the culture of the White House.

Women have a lot of power in private life. There are many men who would say, 'Hey, women already rule my life.' But with women, more is more. The more there are, the more the world gets used to seeing them. We change the culture. We begin to expand options and lead and manage.

You can't leave out half the world's experience and expect to address all the problems. Women communicate differently and process information differently, which leads them to resolve conflicts differently.

Almost all first ladies have had tremendous power on personnel issues, whether the public realized it or not, whether it was Barbara Bush or Nancy Reagan or whoever.

Throughout his presidency, Clinton made a point of getting close - physically and emotionally - to the people whose problems his administration was working to solve.

Yes, Bill Clinton is a big flirt.

I'm a baseball freak.

I worked for a lot of candidates, in tough campaigns that lost. Most of my candidates lost until Bill Clinton. There was always a point where you look in their eyes and they knew it was over. And there was never that point with Clinton. He never quit. He never gave up.

The fight is always the same within the Democratic Party, isn't it? The more things change, the more they stay the same.

We don't take credit for our accomplishments. I can't tell you how many times you'll say to a woman, 'Oh God, what you did was so great', and they say, 'Really? I didn't think it was that good.'