You never want a serious crisis to go to waste.

And the last thing that I want to see us do is ask more and more of our troops [in Afghanistan ] without guaranteeing that we're providing more and more of what's necessary to make the mission successful.

There has to be a reform within the government that is tangible, that we can actually measure and that we have confidence is going to provide some of the differences that I think are essential to our troops to be able to carry out their mission and to the longer- term interests of our country.

I've never been in a place where winning has hurt the ability to do anything.

Nearly losing my life made me want to live my life.

We need to deal with the problem of al Qaeda, make sure that they can't have a sanctuary in Afghanistan and guarantee that we have regional stabilization and particularly focused on Pakistan.

Personally, I don't pick books for how people think about me. I read books so I can learn.