Today, I say that no nation in the world need be left out of the global system we are constructing.

The interesting part is, that being the United States Secretary of State, most places I went didn't have a problem with me being a woman, because I was representing the United States.

I 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.

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

I am by nature a worried optimist.

I don't actually believe in a clash of civilizations. I believe in a clash of the civilized and the noncivilized.

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