American national security and American economic interests, of course - every president, every secretary of state - that is the primary goal. As you are in this job and in the work, you begin to see, though, that in the long run, both American economic interests and American national security are better served when there are other decent countries in the world who are both your allies and even when your adversaries are acting more decently.

The best armor against everything around you is to be well educated, to work hard, to be twice as good as if you had to be, to do languages and culture better.

...if you are overdressed, it is a comment on them. If you are under dressed, it is a comment on you.

Well, there are many things, whenever you look back, that you would've done differently. We're all human. We do our best at the time. I really wish that we had passed a comprehensive immigration bill because that would've really helped our country. We came close, but we couldn't.

I've never really been a workaholic. I work very hard, but I also enjoy playing. I think it's important to have a balanced and well-rounded life.

There was no silver bullet that could have prevented the 11 September attacks. There was nothing demonstrating or showing that something was coming in the United States. If there had been something, we would have acted on it.

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