I believe in having a private life.

it is a longstanding principle that sitting national security advisers do not testify before the Congress.

What we will not wait for is that particular nexus of terrorism, weapons of mass destruction that is extremism, and the technology to come together in a way that is harmful to the United States.

The first Republican I knew was my father and he is still the Republican I most admire. He joined our party because the Democrats in Jim Crow Alabama of 1952 would not register him to vote. The Republicans did. My father has never forgotten that day, and neither have I.

Power is nothing unless you can turn it into influence.

I find that the great majority of public servants across the entire political spectrum come because they believe in the United States and they want to change the world.

It is possible to work across the aisle in Washington, but it's hard. And I think it's been made worse by the kind of 24-hour news cycle, the fact that everything is on TV before you can work things out quietly. I think it's the intensity of information that makes it feel more difficult to get things done. But I didn't leave with a bitter taste about the politics. The one thing that I would say is, I do think there is an unfortunate tendency to turn political differences, or policy differences, into critiques of one another's character or motives, and that's unfortunate.