I have to tell you, my seven-year-old granddaughter said to my daughter, her mother, 'So what's the big deal about Grandma Maddy having been Secretary of State? Only girls are Secretaries of State.' Most of her lifetime, it's true. But at the time it really was a big deal.

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.

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 went to college somewhere between the invention of the iPad and the discovery of fire... but I had gone to a women's college.

Well, the thing that I learned as a diplomat is that human relations ultimately make a huge difference.

And frankly, I don't understand - I mean, I'm obviously a card-carrying Democrat - but I can't understand why any woman would want to vote for Mitt Romney, except maybe Mrs. Romney.