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.

I think that there is never an indispensable leader, you know? I think that there is a time with dignity that one needs to leave.

The reason I made women's issues central to American foreign policy, was not because I was a feminist, but because we know that societies are more stable if women are politically and economically empowered.

I saw what happened when a dictator was allowed to take over a piece of a country and the country went down the tubes. And I saw the opposite during the war when America joined the fight.

I wasn't a normal professor. I had worked in government. I hadn't written nine zillion books. I was a hands-on professor.

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.

Women are more than 50% of almost every country in the world. Countries rob themselves of the resources of women if they keep them as property. It isn't that women can't find work. It's just that women don't get paid for their work and are not recognized properly. It's something that has to be on the international agenda all the time.