The one thing that I remember from all of my intelligence briefings and my dealings with the Russians is that when you deal with the Russians, you have to deal with them from strength, not from weakness.

I want to reassert again the position of the United States that with regards to Iran, we will not allow Iran to develop a nuclear weapon, period. We will not allow them to develop a nuclear weapon, and we will exert all options in the effort to ensure that that does not happen...The United States stands firmly with Israel, and we have a rock solid commitment to the security of Israel and to the security of its citizens.

Al Qaeda still remains a threat.

I suddenly realized at the CIA that I had to make life-and-death decisions about people.

We are a nation at war. This is also a time for hard choices. It's about ensuring that we are able to prevail in the conflicts in which we are now engaged. But it's also about being able to be strong and disciplined in applying our nation's limited resources to defending America.

I think a quality that a national security adviser must have is the ability to set up procedures.

I have tremendous confidence in the ability of government institutions and the American people to do what is right to make sure that our democracy stays on the right track.