I was taught to strive not because there were any guarantees of success but because the act of striving is in itself the only way to keep faith with life.

I know that war is very cruel and that life is harder when you aren't able to live in the place you called home.

The process of education in the oldest profession in the world is like any other educational process, in that it requires time andeffort and patience; it can only be acquired by taking one step at a time, though the steps become accelerated after the first few.

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.

I bought ... the pins with my three daughters in mind; the ships are beautiful, graceful, and moving along at full sail, having long since left home port.

The American Dream means being part of a society that allows you to be or do whatever you want, and to have a sense that your individual optimism and hard work will be rewarded. It exists outside of the U.S. as well as inside. People continue to come here because they want to improve their lives, they want to be able to support themselves and they want to live in freedom. A lot of people who criticize this country still send their children here to study.

I think we all are people that are the product of our backgrounds. It's wrong to think that you're not.