One of the toughest battles in intelligence is combating conventional wisdom.

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.

If there's ever an example that military power alone cannot be successful in Afghanistan, I think it was the Soviet experience.

What I know concerns me. What I don't know concerns me even more. What people aren't telling me worries me the most.

Defense is not like other discretionary spending.

I read in the press, and therefore it must be true, that no secretary of defense had ever been quoted as arguing for a bigger budget for State.

Often, loyalty means telling people things they don't want to hear. It's not being sycophantic, it's not telling them how wonderful they are every day. It's being willing to tell them the days they're not wonderful.