One of the things that was really an issue was I did not want to just be a woman secretary of state. I wanted to be a secretary of a state who was a woman,...

And so I think that the idea of America working with other countries to solve problems is good for us, and it is part of digging us out of the ‘my way or the highway’...

I was a little girl in World War II and I’m used to being freed by Americans.

The greatest thrill in my life was to represent the United States of America.

I have said this many times, that there seems to be enough room in the world for mediocre men, but not for mediocre women, and we really have to work very, very hard.

Because of my parents’ love of democracy, we came to America after being driven twice from our home in Czechoslovakia – first by Hitler and then by Stalin.

I wasn’t a normal professor. I had worked in government. I hadn’t written nine zillion books. I was a hands-on professor.

I think women are really good at making friends and not good at networking. Men are good at networking and not necessarily making friends. That’s a gross generalization, but I think it holds in many...

I saw what happened when a dictator was allowed to take over a piece of a country and the country went down the tubes. And I saw the opposite during the war when America joined...

I believe that my parents did wonderful things for us.

I have had fun being who I became, so to speak.

Nobody’s ever said that pins are a tool of diplomacy.

Saddam’s goal is to achieve the lifting of U.N. sanctions while retaining and enhancing Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction programs. We cannot, we must not and we will not let him succeed.

I do believe that in order to be a successful negotiator that as a diplomat, you have to be able to put yourself into the other person’s shoes. Unless you can understand what is motivating...

Don’t make me into this airy-fairy, moralist, idealist because I’m not.

NATO has been a thread throughout my life.

As a leader, you have to have the ability to assimilate new information and understand that there might be a different view.

You think that the heads of state only have serious conversations, but they actually often begin really with the weather or, ‘I really like your tie.’

I can’t go out with a Republican.

I’ve never seen America as an imperialist or colonialist or meddling country.

For somebody who loves foreign policy, being Secretary is the best job in the world – but it doesn’t happen twice.

I can’t imagine what it is like to be raised in a society where their only statues that exist are to you and your father.

Really, I have to laugh because there was a whole set of stories that made me sound like the Dragon Lady, you know, ‘tough this and tough that.’ Then there is this business about ‘gooey.’...

I was in Europe and it was at this stage that I fell in love with Americans in uniform. And I continue to have that love affair.

People are finding it harder and harder to relate to foreign policy.

I’ve never been to New Zealand before. But one of my role models, Xena, the warrior princess, comes from there.

I think the personal relationships I established mattered in terms of what I was able to get done. And I did bring women’s issues to the center of our foreign policy.

I enjoy wearing pins, and nobody tells me to do it.

Most of the time I spend when I get up in the morning is trying to figure out what is going to happen.

I’m a problem-solver.

I have always thought of myself as a Czechoslovak Catholic.

I love being a woman and I was not one of these women who rose through professional life by wearing men’s clothes or looking masculine. I loved wearing bright colors and being who I am.

Life is grim, and we don’t have to be grim all the time.

To be safe at the expense of the liberty of other people is a difficult equation.

I really think that there was a great advantage in many ways to being a woman. I think we are a lot better at personal relationships, and then have the capability obviously of telling it...

If we have to use force, it is because we are America. We are the indispensable nation. We stand tall. We see further into the future.

Hussein has chosen to spend his money on building weapons of mass destruction and palaces for his cronies.

I was taught to strive not because there were any guarantees of success but because the act of striving is in itself the only way to keep faith with life.

I have to tell you, my seven-year-old granddaughter said to my daughter, her mother, ‘So what’s the big deal about Grandma Maddy having been Secretary of State? Only girls are Secretaries of State.’ Most of...

Well, the thing that I learned as a diplomat is that human relations ultimately make a huge difference.

I didn’t want to set up a women’s studies program. I thought women should learn to operate in a coeducational atmosphere, because, especially in national security and international affairs, it’s male-dominated.

The capability of negotiating… is something that means you not only have to understand fully what you believe and what your national interests are but in order to be a really good negotiator, you have...

I know that war is very cruel and that life is harder when you aren’t able to live in the place you called home.

To understand Europe, you have to be a genius – or French.

Even before I went to the UN, I often would want to say something in a meeting – only woman at the table – and I’d think, ‘OK well, I don’t think I’ll say that....

Well I do think, when there are more women, that the tone of the conversation changes, and also the goals of the conversation change. But it doesn’t mean that the whole world would be a...

The only thing I have to go by is what my mother and father told me, how I was brought up.

What people have the capacity to choose, they have the ability to change.

The U.N. bureaucracy has grown to elephantine proportions. Now that the Cold War is over, we are asking that elephant to do gymnastics.

For me, America is really, truly the indispensable nation.