31 Quotes by Kristen Welker

You can't be too far away from your BlackBerry because if there's a development anywhere around the world, it impacts the White House.

A couple of years ago, I went to dinner with a very high-profile source, and out of respect, I put my phone down for, say, an hour and a half. And during this dinner there was a major breaking story related to the Secret Service. When I picked my phone back up, I had missed about 50 emails and seven phone calls from the network.

But when my mother ran for City Council, that was the moment when I knew I wanted to be a political reporter. Some reporters asked her about being married to my father - they have an interracial relationship - as if that was somehow a negative thing.

Every time I walk through the White House gates, if you don't stop and take it in and recognize that you are a witness to history, it's time for you, frankly, to get a new job.

It's not unusual for me to find that I'm the only female journalist of color in the front row during some of the briefings.

I think it's incredibly important that we think about diversity in the context of the White House press corps, because it's important that the group of people there is representative of the diversity that we see throughout the country.

I think that as reporters we certainly bring to bear our own set of experiences, our backgrounds, to our reporting.

Why is it appropriate for the President to use a racial slur in any context?

My big challenge, I will say, is contouring. God help us all with contouring.