If it's going to come out eventually, better have it come out immediately.

Well, the capacity of French intellectuals to understand a Texan way of thinking is finite.

An Iranian moderate is one who has run out of ammunition.

Our nation is uniquely endowed to play a creative and decisive role in the new order which is taking form around us.

Our concern for human rights comes to the fore when there are gross violations of human decencies. Then other countries, including China, must recognize that this affects the American attitude towards their country. But towards what precise institutions will it evolve? I think we ought to leave something to history.

Most high officials leave office with the perceptions and insights with which they entered.

Some of the critics viewed Vietnam as a morality play in which the wicked must be punished before the final curtain and where any attempt to salvage self-respect from the outcome compounded the wrong. I viewed it as a genuine tragedy. No one had a monopoly on anguish.