Peace, prosperity, and democracy cannot endure if imposed from the outside. We should cease to make false distinctions between peacekeeping and prevention; they are in fact inextricably linked.

I'm apologetic when I feel like I've made a mistake. And when I have done a disservice to myself or someone else. But I don't feel a need to apologize for doing or saying something that I think needs to be said, just because it may not sit comfortably with somebody else.

President Obama is perhaps the smartest person I've ever worked with.

I am blunt sometimes; I am diplomatic sometimes; I am all things in between. Abrasive, you know, I guess it's in the eye of the beholder.

I was working with a number of African heads of state. And after their initial surprise, I think many of them just treated me as they would anybody else. They had to deal with me as a representative of the United States of America, and the United States of America was too important to be dismissed or ignored on any grounds.

We know that weapons, heavy weapons continue to flow across the border from Russia into Ukraine. And we have now, in recent days, indications that Russians - Russian military units themselves have, on occasion, fired into Ukraine.

I was conscious of the fact that it could be to my disadvantage to marry a white guy - that some folks would hold that against me.