What's the point of having this superb military you're always talking about if we can't use it?

Women have to be active listeners and interrupters - but when you interrupt, you have to know what you are talking about.

I think the personal relationships I established mattered in terms of what I was able to get done. And I did bring women's issues to the center of our foreign policy.

If we have to use force, it is because we are America. We are the indispensable nation. We stand tall. We see further into the future.

Iraq is a long way from the U.S., but what happens there matters a great deal here. For the risks that the leaders of a rogue state will use nuclear, chemical or biological weapons against us or our allies is the greatest security threat we face.

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.

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