I think the point that we all agree upon is that we have to engage with Russia.

I tell young people: If you make a job choice on the basis of something other than your nose or your gut, it's unlikely to work out.... It's perilous to look ahead and be like, "I'd like to be ambassador." I would never have gone to Bosnia or spent years writing about genocide. Do it on the basis of what you can learn.... It's like falling in love. Your whole dating life, you're thinking, On the one hand, on the other hand. Then you meet the right guy, and you're not in list-making mode; you're just with the person you're supposed to be with. Jobs are like that too.

From Richard Holbrooke - and I miss him every day - I learned two things. One, prioritization: Never take your eye off the longer-term reforms. The other thing is, he was a hell of a schmoozer! So I should take advantage of my Irish love of beer and gift of the gab, and build relationships. That's a cherished part of the job, asking someone, "How did you get to be the Rwandan ambassador?" I try to take advantage of the fact that I hope to be here at least until the president's term ends getting to know my colleagues.

Countries that intervene militarily rarely do so out of pure altruism.

No more than a surgeon can operate while tweeting can you reach your potential with one ear in, one ear out. You actually have to reacquaint yourself with concentration. We all do.

My second epiphany came as an intern at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. The man I worked for was consumed with what was going on in Bosnia. And the more I knew [about it] the more saddened I was. There were these images of emaciated men behind barbed wire.... It was like, I've got to find a way to do something.

Silence in the face of atrocity is not neutrality; silence in the face of atrocity is acquiescence.