The World War II generation believed the United States could do anything - anything... And Vietnam was a shattering experience for everyone.

As countries grapple with modernization, people who are left behind tend to hold firmer and firmer to their view of the evil of modernity.

Our enemy is Al Qaeda and its allies, people who have publicly said they wish to attack the United States again, people who have publicly called on nuclear physicists and engineers to help them gain access to nuclear weapons, which, as the whole world knows, Pakistan has.

If a country denies it has AIDS, that country will inevitably become an even greater victim.

In diplomacy, as in life itself, one often learns more from failures than from successes. Triumphs will seem, in retrospect, to be foreordained, a series of brilliant actions and decisions that may in fact have been lucky or inadvertent, whereas failures illuminate paths and pitfalls to be avoided.

It's an improvisation on a theme. You know where you want to go, but you don't know how to get there. It's not linear.

The United Nations is an indispensable but deeply flawed organization. It is valuable to the United States, and the United States is invaluable to it. We need to reform it.