There is plenty of room in the world for mediocre men but there is no room for mediocre women.

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

Foreign policy is now a huge field. It isn't just people who are studying political science. There are so many aspects to it in terms of understanding hard science for people who are studying climate change, or people who are interested in health policy or food security, or people who care about education.

What distinguishes Americans from many people in the world is our kind of endemic optimism.

One of my trips was to meet with the Gulf Cooperation Council with all the Saudi foreign ministers, and when we started the meeting I said 'Perhaps you've noticed that I'm not dressed the same as my predecessors", but no-one had a problem and I was never treated with anything other than respect...So I did not have problems with that, interestingly enough.

US is a very religious country. Separation of church and state is part of our credo, but that it is hard to understand since our money says "In God we trust" and every President says "God bless America".

If you look at my life, generally, I've been put in situations which were difficult and which I conquered.