Real leadership comes from the quiet nudging of an inner voice. It comes from realizing that the time has come to move beyond waiting to doing.

I think this is a very hard choice, but the price - we think the price is worth it.

I think the hardest part [is] the priorities. There are an awful lot of things to do [being Secretary of State].

Because of my parents' love of democracy, we came to America after being driven twice from our home in Czechoslovakia - first by Hitler and then by Stalin.

The bottom line is, the more we have a cadre of women moving up the scale, and it doesn't seem threatening, and people realize that women actually work much harder than men, and realize that they need more women in these jobs, I think that goes away.

I am not a fatalist. I have just been reading War and Peace and Tolstoy is such a fatalist. I think people can make a difference... I am an optimist who worries a lot.

I really think that there was a great advantage in many ways to being a woman. I think we are a lot better at personal relationships, and then have the capability obviously of telling it like it is when it's necessary.