Have fun in your command. Don't always run at a breakneck pace. Take leave when you've earned it, spend time with your families.

Give me the right people and I don’t much care what organization you give me. Good things will happen. Give me the wrong people and it doesn’t matter what you do with the organization. Bad things will happen.

Terrorism threat is serious, and not just to American interests. The assaults in Russia against two airliners, bringing them out of the sky, and against a subway station, and then that horrible scene at the school in Beslan. This kind of terrorist activity no one is immune from it. And so it suggests that we have to do even more together to make sure the civilized worlds join together in the war against terrorism.

First you train the followers to accomplish the mission. Second, you resource them: Make sure that they have the tools to do the job. Third, you reward them: You give them medals or bonuses.

I don't think we handled the aftermath of the fall of Baghdad as well as we might have. But that's now history.

I have never seen a good organization where the standards weren't high.

I regret that the presentation I made at the UN turned out to be wrong. It was wrong on the stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction, but pretty much right on intentions and capabilities.