Our effort to build stability through authoritarians in the Middle East for 60 years had given us neither democracy nor stability.

The best armor against everything around you is to be well educated, to work hard, to be twice as good as if you had to be, to do languages and culture better.

As Americans we like to believe that we're loved in international politics or that people like what we're doing. But we also recognize that we have an extraordinary responsibility to do what we think is right, and that sometimes what we do is not very popular.

I love to watch football.I actually really love to watch almost any competition with a score at the end.

When you're in government, of course, you have protection and you have people who are looking out for your wellbeing, but you can't live in a state of fear. If you do, you're not going to do your job very well and you're going to give yourself high blood pressure, which probably isn't worth it.

There's no greater challenge and there is no greater honor than to be in public service.

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.