One of the things I write about a bit in my Madam Secretary memoir is on Rwanda, where I was an instructed ambassador at the U.N., and my instructions were to not vote for increased forces there, and I didn't like my instructions. So I got up and called Washington and said, "Change my instructions," and they didn't.
Madeleine AlbrightWhat's the point of having this superb military you're always talking about if we can't use it?
Madeleine AlbrightI was not only the first woman to become secretary of state, I was the first [U.S.] secretary of state of the 21st century. I was the first secretary of state to own a Web site, to visit Internet cafes, and to make Internet access a part of policy.
Madeleine AlbrightDemocracy cannot be built on revenge and you will not have the support of the world if you are intolerant and take the law into your own hands.
Madeleine AlbrightI think we all are people that are the product of our backgrounds. It's wrong to think that you're not.
Madeleine AlbrightIn terms intellectually, [what] shaped my life was the whole Munich thing [the Munich Agreement] that I knew about all my life, in terms of how large powers make decisions that affect small countries, and the unintended consequences of that. The other part is I knew about the Holocaust. l just didn't know that it applied to my family. But that did affect the way I thought about what I was seeing as ethnic cleansing in the Balkans; there's no question about that.
Madeleine Albright