I went to a girls high school and I went to a women's college and when I first started teaching at Georgetown it had been a single sex school and so they wanted to have some women professors when they went co-ed, and so I originally was hired to start a program there, and really encourage women to go into foreign policy. I always have done that, and I really do think that things are better when women are involved.

It's important that we invest in America - literally. The terrorists wanted to destroy our economy, and we can't let our system fall apart. We also have to invest in one another.

Foreign policy is now a huge field. It isn't just people who are studying political science. There are so many aspects to it in terms of understanding hard science for people who are studying climate change, or people who are interested in health policy or food security, or people who care about education.

If there's nobody in your way, you're not going anywhere.

I was taught to strive not because there were any guarantees of success but because the act of striving is in itself the only way to keep faith with life.

No matter how hard we might wish, we will not be able to transform China's behavior overnight.

Well, the thing that I learned as a diplomat is that human relations ultimately make a huge difference.