We have a responsibility in our time, as others have had in theirs, not to be prisoners of history but to shape history, a responsibility to fill the role of path-finder, and to build with others a global network of purpose and law.

For me, being raised in a free America made all the difference.

I consider it my patriotic duty as an ordinary citizen - not as Secretary of State - to ask questions. I think we have to ask ourselves the tough questions.

As a leader, you have to have the ability to assimilate new information and understand that there might be a different view.

One of my trips was to meet with the Gulf Cooperation Council with all the Saudi foreign ministers, and when we started the meeting I said 'Perhaps you've noticed that I'm not dressed the same as my predecessors", but no-one had a problem and I was never treated with anything other than respect...So I did not have problems with that, interestingly enough.

China is in its own category - too big to ignore, too repressive to embrace, difficult to influence, and very, very proud.

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.