My father said I was perfectly suited for Washington because I've always worked around nuts.

Russians understand strength, and if they feel that their opponents are weak, they will take advantage of it.

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.

The potential for the next Pearl Harbor could very well be a cyber-attack.

The reason we've always had a civilian in that job [Secretary of Defence] is because we really believe that it is policymakers who ought to control the military and not have the military control the military.

Winning in Afghanistan is having a country that is stable enough to ensure that there is no safe haven for Al Qaida or for a militant Taliban that welcomes Al Qaida. That's really the measure of success for the United States.

The Taliban is resilient.