The day-to-day making of policy is arguing all the time. You're trying to get the right approach and the right answer, and there are moments that aren't very pleasant. But in the end, you look at the overall product.

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

To be safe at the expense of the liberty of other people is a difficult equation.

There is plenty of room in the world for mediocre men but there is no room for mediocre women.

If intelligence were a television set, it would be an early black-and-white model with poor reception, so that much of the picture was gray and the figures on the screen were snowy and indistinct. You could fiddle with the knobs all you wanted, but unless you were careful, what you would see often depended more on what you expected or hoped to see than on what was really there.

I think that the Middle East is the largest piece of unfinished business that we all have. I happen to believe in the democratization process.

I think that there is never an indispensable leader, you know? I think that there is a time with dignity that one needs to leave.