Mary Cheney

After being sworn in to office, vice presidents have usually been relegated to the sidelines, where they just don't get to do very much.

I'm probably a little more like my dad. But because of my mom, I never saw being a woman as being an impediment to being able to do something. She had her Ph.D. before I was born.

There are millions of gay people in the United States, including well-known celebrities.

It's always better to deliver the news yourself rather than allow your boss to be surprised.

In the 1980s, there weren't a lot of role models for gay teenagers.

I had to admit I'd pretty much failed at the whole low-profile thing.

I came very close to quitting my job for the Bush-Cheney '04 campaign. I seriously considered packing up my office and heading home to Colorado.

Heather and I decided we were going to be pretty low-key at the convention.

Having loving and supporting parents didn't make me feel any better about the possibility of seeing my personal life splashed across newspapers and tabloids.

Early numbers are always wrong.

Campaign staffers develop the ability to sleep through anything.

Life would be so much harder if I had to lie about who I was.

I'd rather not be known as the Vice President's lesbian daughter.

I always knew that there was something that made me different, and by the time I was in high school, I understood what it was.

Campaigning in Wyoming is politics at its most retail level. It's done one voter at a time.

John Kerry didn't out me, nor did he offend or attack me by calling me a lesbian. I certainly couldn't be offended by the truth.

I'm not sure when I first knew that I was gay.

The vice presidential candidate tends to be a bit of an afterthought.

It wasn't a secret that I was gay. I'd come out to my parents during my junior year of high school, on the day that I also wrecked the family car.

I didn't know that President Bush would endorse a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage.

It won't take 40 years for opposition to same-sex marriage to dissipate.