Fortunately, I started very young, so I read music very well. And my favorite composers to play are Brahms and Mozart.

As secretary of state it's been an enormous honor to represent this great country that I love so much - I have really seen that our great strengths are in the ability of people to reach their potential here.

For 60 years, my country, the United States, pursued stability at the expense of democracy in this region, here in the Middle East, and we achieved neither.

The political face of Europe is one that has said very clearly that it wants cooperation and friendship with the United States.

I grew up in a very loving middle class family. My parents were educators. I'm not even the first PhD in my family. They tried to shield me, just as other parents in my neighborhood tried to shield their children. But you knew there was a reason that you couldn't go to that theme park or to a movie theater or to a hamburger stand. They couldn't shield you completely. What they did though was they never let it be an excuse for not achieving, and they always said racism is somebody else's problem, not yours. They tried in that way not to make us bitter about Birmingham.

The quicker we get about the business of reducing our reliance on oil the better.

Every life is worthy and every life is capable of greatness. We have an obligation to make sure that opportunity for greatness is there.