What distinguishes Americans from many people in the world is our kind of endemic optimism.

I have said this many times, that there seems to be enough room in the world for mediocre men, but not for mediocre women, and we really have to work very, very hard.

I have been in meetings where a head of state will say, 'I like your tie,' to a man... or, 'I like your country because the weather's good,' or whatever. So for me, the pins in some ways were openers.

I know that war is very cruel and that life is harder when you aren't able to live in the place you called home.

I hope I'm wrong, but I am afraid that Iraq is going to turn out to be the greatest disaster in American foreign policy - worse than Vietnam, not in the number who died, but in terms of its unintended consequences and its reverberation throughout the region.

I can't imagine what it is like to be raised in a society where their only statues that exist are to you and your father.

I never dreamed about one day becoming Secretary of State. It's not that I was modest; it's just that I had never seen a Secretary of State in a skirt.