It was actually fun to write [memoir], because I went back to interview people my parents had taught or who had worked with them, and I learned a lot about them that I hadn't known.

I've always said that I expected to grow up and get married like any nice southern girl, but the fact is you don't get married in the abstract. You find someone that you'd like to be married to.

In light of 50 years of bondage of Eastern Europe, [invading the Soviet Union in 1948 to prevent it from acquiring nuclear weapons] was probably a reasonable thing to do.

You know, I've never believed, in anything, that you had to have role models who looked like you to do something. If I'd been waiting for a black, female, soviet specialist role model, I'd be still waiting.

I really believe that you can. Not only do I think it is a part of public service to help young people find their way, just as professors had helped me find mine, but I've been very involved in K-12 education issues. I started a program back in 1992 called the Center for a New Generation, an afterschool enrichment program.

I worry that the weakness - particularly of our public schools - is going to make that less and less true for everybody. And if we ever lose that as our core, then we're going to lose our confidence. We're not going to lead. We're going to protect. We're going to turn inward. That would be very bad for the world. So as a former Secretary of State, I think I can advocate for education as a national security priority.

I worry a great deal about all of those surveys that are out that Americans, in particular, are becoming distrustful of our institutions - that Americans are beginning to say they're either irrelevant or they're corrupt or they certainly don't speak to me. But the institutions are actually still functioning.