In government, I'm a strong believer in the need for reform of government agencies and departments. They - they have gotten fat and sloppy, and they're not user friendly. They are inefficient. They cost too much.

I've seen, all too often in my career, people coming in to lead agencies and organizations and trying to impose change from the top down. Never works. You never have enough time.

When I was the director of Central Intelligence in the early '90s, I tried to get the Air Force to partner with us in building drones. And they didn't want to, because they had no pilots.

Most governments lie to each other. That's the way business gets done.

Congress is best viewed from a distance - the farther the better - because up close, it is truly ugly.

Development is a lot cheaper than sending soldiers.

I think in the context of senior government positions, I think an anecdote of what I told President-Elect Barack Obama when we had our first meeting. And I said, "You don't know me. Can you trust me? Why do you think you can trust me?" and so on. But at the end, I said, "You can count on me to be loyal to you. I will not leak. I will keep my disagreements with you private. And if I cannot be loyal, I'll leave." Loyalty means doing what you think is in the best interest of that person as well as the country.