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 was very proud and grateful to be the first African-American woman in the position. I thought it said a lot about our country that we had back-to-back African-American Secretaries of State, Colin Powell and then me. I also thought it said a lot about President Bush that he didn't see limits on the highest ranking diplomat in terms of color. It's a hard job, but really the best one in government.

We're all products of our environment, and I suspect that strength of will - the feeling, "I'm going to be able to do whatever you put in front of me" - is honed in an environment where not everything is easy. Ironically, growing up in that environment, you don't have a sense of aggrievement or entitlement. You just have a sense of overcoming.

Human beings are not perfect. Their institutions are not perfect, but they have to keep trying. And America has to help people keep trying.

Every life is capable of greatness.

You never cede control of your own ability to be successful to something called racism.

So I think, if September 11 taught us anything, it taught us that we're vulnerable, and vulnerable in ways that we didn't fully understand.