I felt that America's duty was not to try to do everything itself, but to foster a sense of commitment that would bring out the best in every country.

We must be authors of the history of our age.

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

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.

the purpose of foreign policy is to persuade others to do what we want or, better yet, to want what we want.

The stunning part was that one time Neil McElroy the Secretary of Defense who was the father of one of our classmates spoke and basically at commencement, he told us all that our job after graduation was to get married and have interesting sons...and we all found that hard to believe.

Well I do think, when there are more women, that the tone of the conversation changes, and also the goals of the conversation change. But it doesn't mean that the whole world would be a lot better if it were totally run by women. If you think that, you've forgotten high school.