The only way I can describe the extent of my anxiety is to say that I felt as if I were pregnant with a rock.

In Washington, the public and the private intertwine in such a way that they can't be easily separated. This is the city where the personal and the political are most closely linked.

What I essentially did was to put one foot in front of the other, shut my eyes and step off the ledge. The surprise was that I landed on my feet.

If one is rich and one's a woman, one can be quite misunderstood.

Some questions don't have answers, which is a terribly difficult lesson to learn.

No one can avoid aging, but aging productively is something else.

For more than eight decades, Washington has been my hometown. ... It is a city that offers me more people -- more different kinds of people -- than I could otherwise possibly have come to know in a lifetime: the native Washingtonian, the local merchant, the foreign diplomat, the ever-present tourist, the public servant, the journalist, the president, the friend.