I think my father thought I might be president of the United States. I think he would've been satisfied with secretary of state. I'm a foreign policy person and to have a chance to serve my country as the nation's chief diplomat at a time of peril and consequence, that was enough.
You are American, whether you profess Judaism, Catholicism, Protestantism, whether you adhere to Islam, or whether you believe in nothing at all. And you're as American as anybody else, whatever your religious beliefs. But try not to get caught up in media stereotypes of your neighbors and of your country. Think about people that you know and how they treat you. As you get to know someone, it matters not what religious background they have, or what their nationality is, or where they came from. And I think that's how Americans really do relate to each other on a personal level.
People want to psychoanalyze me, but the fact is, I'm not that complicated. I'm pretty straightforward. And I'm not all that self-reflective, because I tend to be a doer.
My parents elected me president of the family when I was 4. We actually had an election every year and I always won. I'm an only child, and I could count on my mother's vote.
The problem here is that there will always be some uncertainty about how quickly Saddam can acquire nuclear weapons. But we don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud.
You know, I look at Vladimir Putin as somebody who is an eye-for-an-eye kind of person. We questioned the legitimacy of his election in 2012, Secretary Clinton did - rightly, by the way. It did have - it was quite fraudulent.And so I think he's saying now, I'm going to show you that I can do the same thing.
NATO is built on security, but it's also built on values.
I think that one of the greatest challenges we have today is around education. One of the things that is dividing us more and more is whether you have good prospects or you don't. Do you live a neighborhood where the schools are good? If you don't, your kids may not read until the time they're in third grade. Do you at least have access to a community college that will give you job training skills so that if you don't go for four years you will at least come out with a decent job and a decent wage. Too many people don't have that opportunity.
Search for role models you can look up to and people who take an interest in your career. But here's an important warning: you don't have to have mentors who look like you. Had I been waiting for a black, female Soviet specialist mentor, I would still be waiting. Most of my mentors have been old white men, because they were the ones who dominated my field.
I was born in segregated Birmingham, Alabama. I didn't have a white classmate till we moved to Denver.
Multilateral diplomacy is hard. It's slower, it's tougher, it's a bigger slog. I've learned that sometimes the things you'd most like to do something about, you really have difficulty unless the international community really mobilizes.
When people see the terrible scenes of violence on television, when we mourn the death of each and every American man and woman in uniform or a civilian that's killed in Iraq, that it's hard to see the progress that's being made and it's hard to believe that this is all going to come out for the better.
Everywhere that I go in the world, people desperately look to American leadership in all of their world's most difficult problems. You can look at any region of the world and the United States is still the country to which those regions look for leadership.
I'm a great believer in the fact that as you get to know someone, it matters not what religious background they have, or what their nationality is, or where they came from. And I think that's how Americans really do relate to each other on a personal level.
We know that there are unaccounted-for Scud and other ballistic missiles in Iraq. And part of the problem is that, since 1998, there has been no way to even get minimal information about those programs except through intelligence means.
I hope that all of us who were fortunate enough to have benefited will put our time, our resources and our efforts into making sure that kids, particularly kids without means, have a way to achieve.
We need to fight protectionism with everything that we have because when there's a level playing field and when you have open markets and when free trade is flourishing, American workers, American farmers, Americans are going to benefit.
I'm a huge proponent of exchanges, student exchanges, cultural exchanges, university exchanges. We talk a lot about public diplomacy, .. It's extremely important that we get our message out, but it's also the case that we should not have a monologue with other people. It has to be a conversation, and you can't do that without exchanges and openness.
I was very proud and grateful to be the first African-American woman in the position. I thought it said a lot about our country that we had back-to-back African-American Secretaries of State, Colin Powell and then me. I also thought it said a lot about President Bush that he didn't see limits on the highest ranking diplomat in terms of color. It's a hard job, but really the best one in government.
I use the word power broadly. Even more important than military and economic power is the power of ideas, the power of compassion, and the power of hope.
You know, life is not one in which you just get to choose the things every day that come easily to you. And it's also true - and this is the self-esteem problem - you learn that there are people who are better at things than you are.
I will never forget the bright September day, standing at my desk in the White House, when my young assistant said that a plane had hit the World Trade Center - and then a second one - and a third, the Pentagon.
I believe that the Iraqis have an opportunity now, without Saddam Hussein there, to build the first multiconfessional Arab democracy in the Middle East. And that will make for a different kind of Middle East. And these things take time. History has a long arc, not a short one. And there are going to be ups and downs, and it is going to take patience by the United States and by Iraq's neighbors to help the Iraqis to do that. But if they succeed, it'll transform the Middle East, and that's worth doing.
History's long arc is different than the today's headlines.
I learned a lot about my parents, who were both teachers. I had known that my parents were very strongly in favor of education. I had known that they had an impact on a lot of people, but people came out of the woodwork who have said, "You know, without your father, I would never have gone to college," very successful people. And so I learned how widespread their educational evangelism really was.
