Everybody in the world is capable of democratic development. Some people in the world are unlucky enough to get stuck with really bad political leadership and with really bad political institutions.

I believe that Reverend [Florine] Thompson's hit on something. My parents, I and a lot of my friends growing up in that community had tremendous drive.

There's no greater challenge and there is no greater honor than to be in public service.

The American Founding Fathers gave us courts, independent jurists. They left room for civil society, which meant that citizens could directly associate in order to bring pressure on their governments. And they gave us a free press. They understood that you might have in the presidency someone who wanted to arrogate power into themselves. And they believed that was dangerous, having just experienced King George. And so they built a balanced system.

I believed Afghanistan was always going to be hard. It's the fifth poorest country in the world. And when you fly over it, you realize that there's not much there. And, of course, it has the problem, too, of being on that border with Pakistan in basically an ungoverned region that has given the terrorists a staging ground. So it's a very difficult place. But I do believe that the mission there can succeed if success is defined as helping the Afghans to prevent the Taliban from being an existential threat to the Afghan government.

Separation of powers is a problem for foreign policy.

I believe our Presidents work hard and it's the loneliest job in the world.