We've been a country that's been fortunate to be protected by two oceans, to not have serious attacks on our territory for most of our history. And we were unfortunately reminded in a very devastating way of our vulnerability.

We needed to go back on the offense and offer clear leadership on Iraq.

We will continue to work together in our common fight against terror.

Our policies toward Iraq simply are to protect the region and to protect Iraq's people and neighbors.

Any time you have a situation in which you are calling for more time rather than calling for Iraq to immediately comply, it plays into the hands of Saddam Hussein.

I didn't run for student council president. I don't see myself in any way in elected office. I love policy. I'm not particularly fond of politics.

I'm saying there is no way that I will do this, because it's really not me. I know my strengths, and governor Romney needs to find someone who wants to run with him. There are many people who will do it very, very well, and I'll support the ticket.

I will never forget the bright September day, standing at my desk in the White House, when my young assistant said that a plane had hit the World Trade Center - and then a second one - and a third, the Pentagon.

After all, when the world looks to America, they look to us because we are the most successful political and economic experiment in human history.

I don't see myself in any way in elective office.

Believe it or not, I loved acid rock in college - and I still do.

If you love Russia, you have to love Godunov.

I've found that in places where women have not really been afforded full rights yet - for instance, in the Middle East - even very conservative politicians in the region will say, 'You know, my daughter would really like to meet you,' or, 'Would you send a note to my granddaughter?'

If I'd been a better long-term planner, I'd still be in music, as a musician someplace. So I'll take it one step at a time.

There isn't a doubt that Iran constitutes the single most important single-country strategic challenge to the United States and to the kind of Middle East that we want to see.

Hamas is a little more than an enemy of the United States. Hamas, of course, is a terrorist organization - listed by Europeans as a terrorist organization.

We were spending American blood and treasure to liberate the people of Afghanistan from one of the most brutal regimes on the face of the earth. That we would not use that moment to press for women's rights seems to me unthinkable.

When you are going up the corporate ladder or the government ladder, you have to take some risk.

We will have to stand up for and promote the power and promise of free markets and free peoples, and affirm that American preeminence safeguards rather than impedes global progress.

I'm not a politician.

Foreign policy simply cannot be judged by today's headlines that chalk up victories and defeats like so many box scores in the sports sections.

What the United States has done is to be open to people who are fleeing tyranny, who are fleeing danger, but we have done it in a very careful way that has worked for us.

I think my father thought I might be president of the United States. I think he would've been satisfied with secretary of state. I'm a foreign policy person, and to have a chance to serve my country as the nation's chief diplomat at a time of peril and consequence, that was enough.

I am a professor at Stanford; I am a happy professor at Stanford. That's where I'm staying.

I got the chance to be the secretary of state; I'm an international relations specialist. It doesn't get better than that.

I know a lot of very stable gay couples.

Great powers can't get tired, because the international order is not self-governing.

I'm quite content to spend my life helping young people find themselves. I've had my fill of politics.

I'm a very happy university professor... the best thing about being a university professor is that you see young people as they're being shaped and molded toward their own future, and you have a chance to be a part of that.

I think golf can be one of those places where we act and we hope that people act as we would like them to act all the time.

I would like to attract more minorities into the game. But it's extremely important that this golf look like - that golf look like America.

I think there are still unanswered questions about Benghazi. I think there are unanswered questions, and they could be easily answered. But I think they need to be answered.

We are not race blind. Of course we still have racial tensions in this country. But the United States of America has made enormous progress in race relations, and it is still the best place on Earth to be a minority.

I believe that while race-neutral means are preferable, it is appropriate to use race as one factor among others in achieving a diverse student body.

I am very fond of Jeb Bush. He's a friend; he was a terrific governor of Florida. I worked with him on some immigration and education issues.

Today's headlines and history's judgment are rarely the same.

You go to war when there is a security threat, and Saddam Hussein was seen as a threat to our interests and our security.

I would even say that my parents, and their friends in our community, thought of education as a kind of armor against racism.

That was a sin: to consider yourself victimized or not able to control your destiny or your fate - that was the one cardinal sin in our community.

My dad was not someone who you would strike with a billy club and he wouldn't strike back. It just wasn't in him.

There was no silver bullet that could have prevented the 9/11 attacks.

I'm actually - believe it or not, for an academic - an aural learner.

If it is not possible for me to go somewhere and to be willing to encounter people with different views, then I'm really not doing my job.

People have the right to protest - that's what democracy is all about. I have no problem with people exercising their democratic rights.