Well, I've ruffled a few feathers at all the institutions I've led. But I think that's part of leadership.

And so the greatest of American triumphs... became a peculiarly joyless victory. We had won the Cold War, but there would be no parades.

I had no difficulty as Secretary of Defense moving from the Bush administration to the Obama administration.

If Iraq and Afghanistan have taught us anything in recent history, it is the unpredictability of war and that these things are easier to get into than to get out of, and, frankly, the facile way in which too many people talk about, 'Well, let's just go attack them.

I have tried to maintain civil relationships with everyone I meet - and, even if I violently disagree with them, try to be respectful.

Some people have said, in so many words, that I'm kind of wooly-headed in believing that the Iranians would see not having nuclear weapons as more in their security interest than not.

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.