If we have to use force, it is because we are America. We are the indispensable nation. We stand tall. We see further into the future.

As a child, I really did see buildings bombed, and what makes me different from an American that's the same age as I am is that I can understand what happens when there is fighting in a way that they couldn't.

We have to understand where we have strategic relationships that require us to take a different approach. I guess the easiest way to describe it is: different strokes for different folks.

I have to tell you, my seven-year-old granddaughter said to my daughter, her mother, 'So what's the big deal about Grandma Maddy having been Secretary of State? Only girls are Secretaries of State.' Most of her lifetime, it's true. But at the time it really was a big deal.

I saw what happened when a dictator was allowed to take over a piece of a country and the country went down the tubes. And I saw the opposite during the war when America joined the fight.

I am a beneficiary of the American people's generosity, and I hope we can have comprehensive immigration legislation that allows this country to continue to be enriched by those who were not born here.

I am by nature a worried optimist.