“If the staff lacks policy guidance against which to test decisions, their decisions will be random.”

First rule of politics: you can’t win unless you’re on the ballot. Second rule: If you run, you may lose. And, if you tie, you do not win.

Your performance depends on your people. Select the best, train them and back them. When errors occur, give sharper guidance. If errors persist or if the fit feels wrong, help them move on. The country cannot afford amateur hour in the White House.

There are known knowns, things we know that we know; and there are known unknowns, things that we know we don’t know. But there are also unknown unknowns, things we do not know we don’t know.

Be able to resign. It will improve your value to the President and do wonders for your performance.

Reduce the number of lawyers. They are like beavers – they get in the middle of the stream and dam it up.

Agreement can always be reached by increasing the generality of the conclusion; when this is done, the form is generally preserved but only the illusion of policy is created.

Many people around the President have sizeable egos before entering government, some with good reason. Their new positions will do little to moderate their egos.

Enjoy your time in public service. It may well be one of the most interesting and challenging times of your life.

Presidential leadership needn’t always cost money. Look for low- and no-cost options. They can be surprisingly effective.

Politics is human beings; it’s addition rather than subtraction.

Death has a tendency to encourage a depressing view of war.

With the press there is no ‘off the record.’

If in doubt, don’t. If still in doubt, do what’s right.

Learn to say ‘I don’t know.’ If used when appropriate, it will be often.

Prune – prune businesses, products, activities, people. Do it annually.

Everyone’s saying you can’t do anything until you can do everything.

You can do what you decide to do — but you cannot decide what you will decide to do.

I had always been the theater nerd at Northwestern University. I knew I wanted to do acting, but I hated the idea of being this cliche – a girl from L.A. who decides to be an actress.

Worry retards reaction and makes clear-cut decisions impossible.

We live in a world that is subjectively open. And we are designed by evolution to be “informavores”, epistemically hungry seekers of information, in an endless quest to improve our purchase on the world, the better to make decisions about our subjectively open future.

Go into the heart of love, and come from that place in all your choices and decisions, and you will find peace.

Your legacy is being written by yourself. Make the right decisions.

What an injustice on your life that would be: to base your decisions on fear.

Part of my job is to make sense of all that I hear, and to retell it in a forceful way so that the decision-makers at Treasury can hear it. At least that’s how I see it.