Once a month I play with a chamber music quartet. I play almost no solo music anymore because I so enjoy the interaction. The members of my quartet have become some of my best friends and so I really enjoy it now in ways that I didn't before.

I have constantly told people that I was Secretary of State and I was not going to get into a partisan debate. And I would vote my ballot in a secret way, as all Americans do. But I just want to acknowledge that after the election took place, it was a special time for Americans.

Our work has only begun. In our time we have an historic opportunity to shape a global balance of power that favors freedom and that will therefore deepen and extend the peace. And I use the word power broadly, because even more important than military and indeed economic power is the power of ideas, the power of compassion, and the power of hope.

We've been a country that's been fortunate to be protected by two oceans, to not have serious attacks on our territory for most of our history. And we were unfortunately reminded in a very devastating way of our vulnerability.

I'm actually genuinely optimistic about the United States and what's possible in the United States. And when you're out here, you see Americans across racial and economic and socioeconomic lines working together. And you maybe get a little bit less cynical than when you sit in the seat of kind of the epicenter of it all.

I think there's sometimes too much attention to a few people who do hold extreme views. Most Americans go about their lives living in communities that are increasingly multiethnic, increasingly multi-religious. And they are welcoming of people who are not like themselves. Now, I don't have rose-colored glasses about America, because I grew up in the segregated South. But I watch it every day. I think that Americans are very tolerant people.

Every life is capable of greatness.