With vision only, you get no follow-through. With enforcers only, the vision is realized but leaves a lot of wreckage.

Being in charge sometimes means making people mad. Some days you have to overrule even the best advice, because you think it is not right.

We are not going to dwell on those things that divide us. We are going to rejoice in those things that keep us together to make this a better country - to reach down and back to touch every young person in need!

Change of regime with respect to Iraq had nothing to do with this; it had everything to do with the fact that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. And at the time change in regime as a policy came into effect in 1998, it was seen as the only way to compel Iraq to get rid of its weapons of mass destruction.

This is something else that is drilled into us in the military: Make sure you know who your replacement is, in case you become a casualty. So you have to have depth within an organization.

I was born in Harlem, raised in the South Bronx, went to public school, got out of public college, went into the Army, and then I just stuck with it.

How can we be enemies when there is so much that pulls us together? But in general I found that I had to work with each one of my foreign colleagues in a way that was consistent with their system. Some are democracies, some are not.