I was not at all apprehensive about ... disease ... [it] had no terrors for me. The thing I most feared in the world was hunger. That was something of which I had personal knowledge.
Madeleine AlbrightEven before I went to the UN, I often would want to say something in a meeting - only woman at the table - and I'd think, 'OK well, I don't think I'll say that. It may sound stupid.' And then some man says it, and everybody thinks it's completely brilliant, and you are so mad at yourself for not saying something.
Madeleine AlbrightOne 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 AlbrightAs a leader, you have to have the ability to assimilate new information and understand that there might be a different view.
Madeleine AlbrightI had more problems with the men in our own government, and not because they were male chauvinistic pigs but because they had known me for so long. I might have been a carpool mother and a friend of their wife, and so they'd been to my house for dinner and things like and they thought 'how did she get to be secretary of state when I should be secretary of state?' So that was more of a problem.
Madeleine Albright