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 think that we all know what evil is. We have a sense of what's evil, and certainly killing innocent people is evil. We're less sure about what is good. There's sort of good, good enough, could be better - but absolute good is a little harder to define.

And so I think that the idea of America working with other countries to solve problems is good for us, and it is part of digging us out of the “my way or the highway” approach that was evident in the previous eight years.

John Kerry knows more about more subjects than an awful lot of people. But I think it's a very hard job [Secretary of State].

I do not believe that things happen accidentally; I believe you earn them.

I have always thought of myself as a Czechoslovak Catholic.

So there really was a whole series of things that took the women of my generation a little bit of time to push forward.