South Africa's increasingly, for example, the largest foreign investor in various other parts of Africa.

All of us as citizens have to be consumers and judges.

I think most Americans understand that we went through a period in which American leadership was judged quite critically internationally.

You can't sit on the sidelines and read your iPhone and be on social media and expect everything to be cool. You have to be part of this.

The youth thing never really, from my vantage point, slowed me down. I think the harder audience for me to gain acceptance from was the career diplomatic corps that worked with and for me in the Africa Bureau.

The notion that I had become a political lightning rod was painful for me to experience.

I'm sort of in this rhythm where we want to make the most of the time we have, but when it's done it will be time for it to be done.