U.S. officials never expected that 'we were going to open garages and find' weapons of mass destruction.

Leading in a complex world means recognizing the simple things you can do to make things better.

I know that people look at my life and ask, "How can I achieve some of those things?" So, I suppose in that sense, yes, I'm a role model. But I try to think of myself more as a mentor, as somebody who I hope young people feel comfortable approaching or writing to.

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.

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.

We can't live true to our set of values unless American educational system is strong. I really believe that if we don't get that right we will not compete because we won't believe that our people can compete, and we'll turn inward. We won't lead. That will be bad for the world.

Our effort to build stability through authoritarians in the Middle East for 60 years had given us neither democracy nor stability.