I finally said, 'I don't care if you're the first person in your family to be a lawyer.' Everybody thought what I was doing was really exciting, but it was not moving me one bit. And that's when I decided to join city government in Chicago, and that changed my life.

Just because somebody says no doesn't mean that you have to listen. You can do what you think is right.

One miscalculation I made is I did not fully appreciate that the Republicans in Congress were going to just say no to everything. Even when there are ideas that have traditionally been bipartisan.

Valerie Jarrett Quotes