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Once A Month I Play With A Chamber Music Quartet. I Play Almost No Solo Music Anymore Because I So Enjoy The Interaction. The Members Of My Quartet Have Become Some Of My Best Friends And So I Really Enjoy It Now In Ways That I Didn't Before.

-Condoleezza Rice

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Once A Month I

Condoleezza Rice

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Once A Month I Play With A Chamber Music Quartet. I Play Almost No Solo Music Anymore Because I So Enjoy The Interaction. The Members Of My Quartet Have Become Some Of My Best Friends And So I Really Enjoy It Now In Ways That I Didn't Before.

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There Clearly Are Contacts Between Al Qaeda And Iraq That Can Be Documented; There Clearly Is Testimony That Some Of The Contacts Have Been Important Contacts And That There's A Relationship Here

America Is A Country That Went Through An Extremely Difficult Set Of Circumstances Out Of 9/11. And We've Survived It As A Country, And I Think We've Survived It As One People. And We All Ought To Be Concentrating On Trying To Make Sure That We Move Forward As One People Out Of That Terrible Experience.

We Can't Live True To Our Set Of Values Unless American Educational System Is Strong. I Really Believe That If We Don't Get That Right We Will Not Compete Because We Won't Believe That Our People Can Compete, And We'll Turn Inward. We Won't Lead. That Will Be Bad For The World.

You Know, As Secretary Of State, I've Been Privileged To Represent This Great Country, And I Know Its Strengths, And I Know Its Challenges. One Of Its Strengths Is The Belief - Here And Abroad - That This Is A Place Where You Get Ahead On Merit. It Doesn't Matter Where You Came From; It Matters Where You're Going.

What Surprised Me Was The Angst At Our Democracy. And I Understand It - I Teach At A University And Feel It In My Students - But What I've Tried To Say To People Is That We Have Amazing Institutions, But Nobody Ever Said We Were Perfect. We Struggled Before And We're Struggling Now, And We're Going To Struggle Every Day. We're A Work In Progress. That's Why The American Experience Is So Important For Us To Remember, And For Us To Be A Beacon For Others To Enjoy Those Same Rights.

It Was Really Wonderful Playing With Aretha [ Franklin]. I Knew That She Knew What She Was Doing, So All I Had To Do Was Sit In The Background And Vamp A Little Bit.

When I Went Off To College, I Was Expecting To Be A Concert Musician. In Music School I Heard All Of These Kids Who Were Just Unbelievable. And I Understand That You Can Be Very, Very Good, But There's Something That Separates Very, Very Good From Great, And I Knew That I Wasn't Great.

I Certainly Think That The World Views The United States As A Place To Be Respected. All Over The World Our Values Are Respected; Who We Are, A Place That You Can Come And Come From Modest Circumstances To Great Things, That's Respected.

Democratic Openings That Come About In That Way - The Overthrow Of A Totalitarian Government By External Powers - It Makes It Really Hard To Make Those First Steps Toward Democracy.

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 Believe That Reverend [florine] Thompson's Hit On Something. My Parents, I And A Lot Of My Friends Growing Up In That Community Had Tremendous Drive.

Out Of Struggle Very Often Comes Victory.

I Worry A Great Deal About All Of Those Surveys That Are Out That Americans, In Particular, Are Becoming Distrustful Of Our Institutions - That Americans Are Beginning To Say They're Either Irrelevant Or They're Corrupt Or They Certainly Don't Speak To Me. But The Institutions Are Actually Still Functioning.

I Think The Saudis Are Not Only Not Supporting Terrorism, They're Fighting It. And Why? Because It Is In Their Interests To Fight It. We Don't Agree On Everything, But I Do Believe That The Saudis For Their Benefit, They're Fighting Terrorism And Fighting It Quite Aggressively.

We Are At War, And Our Security As A Nation Depends On Winning That War.

When You Have Big Historic Changes, There Are Going To Be Ups And Downs... There Are Going To Be Peaks And Valleys. Some Things Are Going To Go Right. Some Things Are Going To Go Wrong. But As Long As The Strategic Direction Is Going In The Right Way, That's Really What You Have To Judge.

[i'm] Very Fortunate And Blessed Person Who Still Has A Lot Of Living To Do.

In The Segregated South, Education Was Almost Like Armor. It Was A Way To Put Yourself In A Category Where Even With The Slings And Arrows And Humiliations Of Racism And Segregation, Somehow You Had Better Control Of The Situation. I Always Said My Parents Understood That You Might Not Be Able To Control Your Circumstances, But They And Their Parents Believed That You Could Control Your Reaction To Your Circumstances.

Iran Can And Should Be A Responsible State, Not The Leading State Sponsor Of Terror.

This System, Built On Free Markets, Free Trade And Free Peoples And American Protection, That's What Got Us From The End Of World War Ii To The Extraordinary Events Of The End Of The Cold War And A System That Was One Of Prosperity And Peace For A Lot Of People, Including For The United States.

I've Never Really Been A Workaholic. I Work Very Hard, But I Also Enjoy Playing. I Think It's Important To Have A Balanced And Well-rounded Life.

Even When You Cherish Democratic Ideals, It Is Never Easy To Turn Them Into Effective Democratic Institutions. This Process Will Take Decades.

Democratic Ideals

When I Said I Had Always Hoped To Marry In My Race, I Really Do Mean That. That Doesn't Mean I Absolutely Wouldn't Marry Outside Of It, But There's A Culture And Traditions To Maintain, And I Have Great Pride In Them, And I Always Thought It Would Be Wonderful To Share That With Somebody Of My Race.

When Are We Going To Stop Making Excuses For The Terrorists And Saying That Somebody Is Making Them Do It? No, These Are Simply Evil People Who Want To Kill.

Leading In A Complex World Means Recognizing The Simple Things You Can Do To Make Things Better.

Truly Remarkable Leadership Is Not Just About Motivating Others To Follow, It's About Inspiring Them To Become Leaders Themselves And Setting The Stage For Even Greater Opportunities For Future Generations.

We Don't Want The Smoking Gun To Be A Mushroom Cloud.

Your Friends And Your Family, If You're Close To Them, They Won't Let You Get Too Far From Who You Were Or From Who You Are. And So I Love Staying Close To People Who've Always Known Me. That's Probably The Best Leavening That You Could Possibly Have.

You Have To Have A Strong Sense Of Your Values And A Strong Sense Of Who You Are, Because There Are A Lot Of Events And A Lot Of People Who Will Pull You In This Direction Or That Direction.

America's Still A Very, Very Powerful Symbol And A Very Important Place Of Leadership For The World.

I Don't Think That Anybody Could Have Predicted That These People Would Take An Airplane And Slam It Into The World Trade Center, Take Another One And Slam It Into The Pentagon, That They Would Try To Use An Airplane As A Missile.

I Wish That After The War Against Saddam Hussein We Had Been More Effective At Rebuilding Iraq Quickly. I Think Had We Done It From The Provinces, In, Rather Than From Baghdad, Out, We Might Have Been More Successful.

Message And Policy Are Very Much A Part, You Know, Two Parts Of The Same Coin.

But I Want To Just Caution, It Is Not Incumbent On The United States To Prove That Saddam Hussein Is Trying To Acquire Weapons Of Mass Destruction. He's Already Demonstrated That He's Trying To Acquire Weapons Of Mass Destruction.

Mass Destruction

Most Days Are Not Overwhelmingly Successful In Your Life. And What Really Marks Whether You're Going To Be Successful Is How Well You Deal With The Bad Days, Not How Well You Deal With The Good Ones.

Being Successful

Success Is Not Assured, But America Is Resolute: This Is The Best Chance For Peace We Are Likely To See For Some Years To Come - And We Are Acting To Help Israelis And Palestinians Seize This Chance.

Congratulations

The Pdb (bin Laden Determined To Strike In U.s.) Does Not Say The United States Is Going To Be Attacked. It Says Bin Laden Would Like To Attack The United States. I Don't Think You, Frankly, Had To Have That Report To Know That Bin Laden Would Like To Attack The United States.

The Best Armor Against Everything Around You Is To Be Well Educated, To Work Hard, To Be Twice As Good As If You Had To Be, To Do Languages And Culture Better.

We Have Our Differences With Russia. And Some Of Those Differences Produce Conflict. But By No Means Is This The Soviet Union. We Have Far More Areas Of Cooperation With Russia Than We Have Areas Of Conflict.

A Lot Is Being Done To Bring Additional Protective Measures, Particularly The Critical Infrastructure Locations Around The United States, ... There Is A Very Active ... Program Of Coordination On This Particular Period Of Time With Both Public And Private Entities And At The Federal, State And Local Levels.

The Most Important Lesson I Think I Could Impart Is Don't Let Anyone Determine What Your Horizons Are Going To Be. You Get To Determine Those Yourself. The Only Limitations Are Whatever Particular Talents You Happen To Have And How Hard You're Willing To Work. And If You Let Others Define Who You Ought To Be, Or What You Ought To Be Because They Put You In A Category, They See Your Race, They See Your Gender And They Put You In A Category. You Shouldn't Let That Happen.

Differences Can Be Strength Rather Than A Handicap.

I'm Happy And Content In My Life, And I Chalk That Up To Wonderful Parents And A Wonderful God.

We're In A New World. We're In A World In Which The Possibility Of Terrorism, Married Up With Technology, Could Make Us Very, Very Sorry That We Didn't Act.

Spirituality And Faith Are At The Core Of Who I Am. I Was Born To Deeply Religious Parents Who Were Able To Give Me That Rock Solid Foundation In The Church And In My Faith Which Really Has Served Me So Well.

Search For Role Models You Can Look Up To And People Who Take An Interest In Your Career. But Here's An Important Warning: You Don't Have To Have Mentors Who Look Like You. Had I Been Waiting For A Black, Female Soviet Specialist Mentor, I Would Still Be Waiting. Most Of My Mentors Have Been Old White Men, Because They Were The Ones Who Dominated My Field.

You Cannot Be On One Hand Dedicated To Peace And On The Other Dedicated To Violence. Those Two Things Are Irreconcilable.

I Really Believe That You Can. Not Only Do I Think It Is A Part Of Public Service To Help Young People Find Their Way, Just As Professors Had Helped Me Find Mine, But I've Been Very Involved In K-12 Education Issues. I Started A Program Back In 1992 Called The Center For A New Generation, An Afterschool Enrichment Program.

I Get Letters From Kids From All Over The Country. I Always Try To Answer Them Because There Were People I Looked Up To In My Youth And Just Wanted To Be In Contact With. It's Also Important To Realize That You Find Your Role Models In A Lot Of Different Places. I've Never Believed That Your Role Models Have To Look Like You. You Can Find Them In All Sort Of Colors, Shapes And Sizes.

We're Not Going To Negotiate About The Terms Of Terrorism. You Don't Negotiate About Terrorism. It's Is Wrong To Engage In Terrorism, And There Isn't Anything To Negotiate.

My Mom Was A Teacher - I Have The Greatest Respect For The Profession - We Need Great Teachers - Not Poor Or Mediocre Ones.

I Find That The Great Majority Of Public Servants Across The Entire Political Spectrum Come Because They Believe In The United States And They Want To Change The World.

I Love To Watch Football.i Actually Really Love To Watch Almost Any Competition With A Score At The End.

We [the United States] Believe The Iranian People Want A Future Of Freedom And Human Rights: The Right To Vote, To Run For Office, To Express Their Views Without Fear And To Pursue Political Causes. We Would Welcome The Progress, Prosperity And Freedom Of The Iranian People.

In Any Country, If You Don't Have Countervailing Institutions, The Power Of Any One President Is Problematic For Democratic Development.

I Believe In Having A Private Life.

There Have Been Plenty Of Markers That Show That This [iraq] Is A Country That Is Worth The Investment, Because Once It Emerges As A Country That Is A Stabilising Factor, You Will Have A Very Different Kind Of Middle East.

The United States Has Been Very Clear That We Did Have To Have Some Political Basis To Make Clear That That Cessation Of Hostilities Was Not Going To Countenance A Return To The Status Quo Ante. This Resolution Does That. And Now We're Going To See Who Is For Peace And Who Isn't.

I Don't Think Anybody Could Have Predicted That They Would Try To Use An Airplane As A Missile, A Hijacked Airplane As A Missile.

In America, With Education And Hard Work, It Really Does Not Matter Where You Came From; It Matters Only Where You Are Going.

I Think America Is Still A Bright, Shining City On The Hill - Not Because We're Perfect But Because We Struggle In Our Imperfections Every Day.

You Know, I Look At Vladimir Putin As Somebody Who Is An Eye-for-an-eye Kind Of Person. We Questioned The Legitimacy Of His Election In 2012, Secretary Clinton Did - Rightly, By The Way. It Did Have - It Was Quite Fraudulent.and So I Think He's Saying Now, I'm Going To Show You That I Can Do The Same Thing.

It Is Possible To Work Across The Aisle In Washington, But It's Hard. And I Think It's Been Made Worse By The Kind Of 24-hour News Cycle, The Fact That Everything Is On Tv Before You Can Work Things Out Quietly. I Think It's The Intensity Of Information That Makes It Feel More Difficult To Get Things Done. But I Didn't Leave With A Bitter Taste About The Politics. The One Thing That I Would Say Is, I Do Think There Is An Unfortunate Tendency To Turn Political Differences, Or Policy Differences, Into Critiques Of One Another's Character Or Motives, And That's Unfortunate.

When Diplomacy Has Been Exhausted, The Security Council Must Become Involved. Questions About Iran's Nuclear Activities Remain Unanswered, Despite Repeated Efforts By The Iaea.

In Light Of 50 Years Of Bondage Of Eastern Europe, [invading The Soviet Union In 1948 To Prevent It From Acquiring Nuclear Weapons] Was Probably A Reasonable Thing To Do.

Today's Headlines And History's Judgment Are Rarely The Same. If You Are Too Attentive To The Former, You Will Most Certainly Not Do The Hard Work Of Securing The Latter.

Once A Month I Play With A Chamber Music Quartet. I Play Almost No Solo Music Anymore Because I So Enjoy The Interaction. The Members Of My Quartet Have Become Some Of My Best Friends And So I Really Enjoy It Now In Ways That I Didn't Before.

What I Tell Student Athletes Is First Of All, You've Made Good Choices This Far In Order To Be Able To Be In College And To Be An Athlete. Keep Making Good Choices.

Our Work Has Only Begun. In Our Time We Have An Historic Opportunity To Shape A Global Balance Of Power That Favors Freedom And That Will Therefore Deepen And Extend The Peace. And I Use The Word Power Broadly, Because Even More Important Than Military And Indeed Economic Power Is The Power Of Ideas, The Power Of Compassion, And The Power Of Hope.

America Cannot Do Most Of What Needs To Be Done Alone. You Need Friends. And We Have Good Friends Around The World. We Have Friends With Whom We Share Values In Europe And Asia - Thanks To The Forward March Of Democracy - In Latin America, In Africa, And Increasingly In The Middle East.

I Think There Are Plenty Of Men Out There Who Are Capable And Accomplished In Their Own Realm. You Don't Have To Be In The Same Field. I've Often Been Asked, "didn't You Want To Get Married?" And Of Course I Wanted To Get Married, But You Have To Fall In Love And Want To Marry A Particular Person. You Don't Get Married In The Abstract. So, Although There Were People I Felt I Might Have Married, It Just Never Happened.

Falling In Love

As Americans We Like To Believe That We're Loved In International Politics Or That People Like What We're Doing. But We Also Recognize That We Have An Extraordinary Responsibility To Do What We Think Is Right, And That Sometimes What We Do Is Not Very Popular.

The People Of The Middle East Share The Desire For Freedom. We Have An Opportunity - And An Obligation - To Help Them Turn This Desire Into Reality.

It Is A Dangerous Thing To Ask Why Someone Else Has Been Given More. It Is Humbling - And Indeed Healthy - To Ask Why You Have Been Given So Much.

But We Do Have Confidence In Our Institutions. We Are Not Russia. We Have An Executive That Is Constrained. We Have A Legislature That Is Real. We Have A Press That Is Free. We Have Courts That Are Independent. This Is Not Russia.

Have Confidence

I Believed Afghanistan Was Always Going To Be Hard. It's The Fifth Poorest Country In The World. And When You Fly Over It, You Realize That There's Not Much There. And, Of Course, It Has The Problem, Too, Of Being On That Border With Pakistan In Basically An Ungoverned Region That Has Given The Terrorists A Staging Ground. So It's A Very Difficult Place. But I Do Believe That The Mission There Can Succeed If Success Is Defined As Helping The Afghans To Prevent The Taliban From Being An Existential Threat To The Afghan Government.

You Do Have To Keep In Mind As You're Going Through Extraordinarily Difficult Circumstances, That If You Stay True, True To Your Values, If You Stay True To Your Principles, If You Believe In These Values, Then You Can Work In That Context To Right Policies That May Not Be Working.

We've Got To Get Back To A Sense Of An American Identity, And That Identity Is Not Nationality Or Religion Or Ethnicity. It Is A Particular Idea, And That Idea Is That You Should Live In Liberty And You Should Be Able To Pursue Happiness.

If The Strong Exploit The Weak, Democracy Will Not Be Stable.

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 Feel That We're Dividing Along Class Lines For The First Time In Our History. Now One Thing That Has Happened In This Reaction To Globalization Is That The Elites Are Not Respectful Of The Values Of Those Who Are Ordinary Citizens, So We Seem To Be Dividing Ourselves Into Ever-smaller Identity Groups, Each With Its Own Narrative, Each With Its Own Grievance, And That's A Problem.

No American President Can Support An Egypt That Calls Into Question The Historic Treaty Between Israel And Egypt. And No American President Can Support An Egypt That Doesn't Fully Recognize Women's Rights Or The Rights Of Religious Minorities.

Human Beings Are Not Perfect. Their Institutions Are Not Perfect, But They Have To Keep Trying. And America Has To Help People Keep Trying.

The American Founding Fathers Gave Us Courts, Independent Jurists. They Left Room For Civil Society, Which Meant That Citizens Could Directly Associate In Order To Bring Pressure On Their Governments. And They Gave Us A Free Press. They Understood That You Might Have In The Presidency Someone Who Wanted To Arrogate Power Into Themselves. And They Believed That Was Dangerous, Having Just Experienced King George. And So They Built A Balanced System.

There's No Greater Challenge And There Is No Greater Honor Than To Be In Public Service.

...if You Are Overdressed, It Is A Comment On Them. If You Are Under Dressed, It Is A Comment On You.

It Is High Time That The International Community Tell Saddam Hussein And His Regime That This Is Not An Issue Of Negotiation With The U.n. About Obligations That They Undertook In 1991.

I Think There's Sometimes Too Much Attention To A Few People Who Do Hold Extreme Views. Most Americans Go About Their Lives Living In Communities That Are Increasingly Multiethnic, Increasingly Multi-religious. And They Are Welcoming Of People Who Are Not Like Themselves. Now, I Don't Have Rose-colored Glasses About America, Because I Grew Up In The Segregated South. But I Watch It Every Day. I Think That Americans Are Very Tolerant People.

There Are Many Other Arrows In Our Diplomatic Quiver.

I've Always Said As A Political Scientist That "culture" Is What We Use When We Can't Explain Things. I Think It's More About Accessibility. Part Of The Problem Is That This Is An Expensive Game [golf]. I Know In A Couple Of Places Where There Are Black Members, And They Come From Pretty Much The Same Socioeconomic Level That The White Members Come From.

I've Speculated About What My Life Might Have Been Like As A Musician, But I'm Afraid I Came To The Conclusion That I Probably Would've Either Been Teaching Piano Or Maybe Gotten To Play At Nordstrom's Department Store.

I'm Very Proud That President [george W.] Bush Took On Aids Relief. It Was The Largest Single Response By Any Country To A Major International Health Crisis, And There Are Millions Of People Who Are Alive Today In Africa And Other Developing Countries Because Of That Program.

Well, There's Been Plenty Of Ultimatums, And One Thing That We Better Be Very Clear Is That We Can't Continue To Have The Kind Of Defiance Of The United Nations, The Defiance Of The International Community That We've Had.

Unless We Improve Our Ability To Provide A Quality Education For Underprivileged Kids, We're Not Going To Really Overcome In A Massive Way Our Past.

I Really Wish That We Had Passed A Comprehensive Immigration Bill Because That Would've Really Helped Our Country.

There Was No Silver Bullet That Could Have Prevented The 11 September Attacks. There Was Nothing Demonstrating Or Showing That Something Was Coming In The United States. If There Had Been Something, We Would Have Acted On It.

You Know, I've Never Believed, In Anything, That You Had To Have Role Models Who Looked Like You To Do Something. If I'd Been Waiting For A Black, Female, Soviet Specialist Role Model, I'd Be Still Waiting.

Self Esteem Comes From Achievements. Not From Lax Standards And False Praise.

I Never Much Cared For Politics. I Love Policy, And I Love International Policy In Particular. I Got To Be Secretary Of State; It Really Doesn't Get Much Better Than That. I Love What I Do. I Love Being A Professor.

The Pursuit By The Iranian Regime Of Nuclear Weapons Represents A Direct Threat To The Entire International Community, Including To The United States And To The Persian Gulf Region.

I Grew Up In A Very Loving Middle Class Family. My Parents Were Educators. I'm Not Even The First Phd In My Family. They Tried To Shield Me, Just As Other Parents In My Neighborhood Tried To Shield Their Children. But You Knew There Was A Reason That You Couldn't Go To That Theme Park Or To A Movie Theater Or To A Hamburger Stand. They Couldn't Shield You Completely. What They Did Though Was They Never Let It Be An Excuse For Not Achieving, And They Always Said Racism Is Somebody Else's Problem, Not Yours. They Tried In That Way Not To Make Us Bitter About Birmingham.

There Are Some Places That Have Had Real Quarrels With The United States' Policies, But I Think The Country Is Very Well-respected Worldwide.

When Somebody Underestimated Me, It Made Me Want To Prove Them Wrong.

Prove Them Wrong

America Is A Remarkable Place In That Social Attitudes Change Almost Imperceptibly, And Then You Wake Up The Next Day And They've Changed. But They've Been Changing All The Time.

You Can Never Ask Others To Do Something You Would Not Do. That Is Integrity.

It's So Much A Part Of Me That It's Almost Hard To Describe Myself In The Absence Of [faith].

Describe Myself

I'm Very Proud That We Stood For The Proposition That No Man, Woman Or Child Should Ever Have To Live In Tyranny. We Believed In Democracy And Promoted It.

Separation Of Powers Is A Problem For Foreign Policy.

As I Was Telling My Husb — As I Was Telling President Bush.

Education Is Transformational. It Changes Lives. That Is Why People Work So Hard To Become Educated And Why Education Has Always Been The Key To The American Dream, The Force That Erases Arbitrary Divisions Of Race And Class And Culture And Unlocks Every Person's God-given Potential.

We Have Had Some Bad Incidents And There Continue To Be Allegations Of Others Which Will Be Investigated; But Overwhelmingly American Forces There, Putting Their Lives On The Line Every Day, Protecting Iraqis, Helping To Liberate Them, That Is Appreciated By The Iraqi People And By The Prime Minister.

Arnold Rampersad Is A Really Good Person. A Really Good Person. As A Matter Of Fact, He Came To Stanford When I Was Provost.

I've Never Really Been A Workaholic.

There's No Doubt That It's Still A Dangerous Place, Afghanistan. The Fortunate Thing Is That The United States Was Helping To Provide Security For Chairman Karzai. And It Shows That The United States Is Committed To That Regime.

We Needed To Go Back On The Offense And Offer Clear Leadership On Iraq.

I Think All Of Us Have Really Got To Redouble Our Efforts, First Of All, To Pay Attention To The K-12 Crisis. The Sad Fact Is That I Can Look At Your Zip Code And Tell Whether You're Going To Get A Good Education. That's Not Fair. And Secondly, I Hope That All Of Us Who Were Fortunate Enough To Have Benefited Will Put Our Time, Our Resources And Our Efforts Into Making Sure That Kids, Particularly Kids Without Means, Have A Way To Achieve.

Our Effort To Build Stability Through Authoritarians In The Middle East For 60 Years Had Given Us Neither Democracy Nor Stability.

I'm Actually Genuinely Optimistic About The United States And What's Possible In The United States. And When You're Out Here, You See Americans Across Racial And Economic And Socioeconomic Lines Working Together. And You Maybe Get A Little Bit Less Cynical Than When You Sit In The Seat Of Kind Of The Epicenter Of It All.

Working Together

I'm A Terrible Long-term Planner.

If A North Korean Ballistic Missile Can Reach Alaska, It Can Reach Vladivostok.

I Know That People Look At My Life And Ask, "how Can I Achieve Some Of Those Things?" So, I Suppose In That Sense, Yes, I'm A Role Model. But I Try To Think Of Myself More As A Mentor, As Somebody Who I Hope Young People Feel Comfortable Approaching Or Writing To.

The United States Is Willing To Exert Strong Leadership To Give Diplomacy Its Very Best Chance To Succeed.

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 Use The Word Power Broadly. Even More Important Than Military And Economic Power Is The Power Of Ideas, The Power Of Compassion, And The Power Of Hope.

We've Organized Human Potential And Have Been Better At Using Human Potential Better Than Any Country On The Face Of The Earth. That's Because We've Recognized That Our National Creed, Our National Identity, Is That It Doesn't Matter Where You're From, It Matters Where You're Going. You Can Come From Hard Circumstances And Do Great Things. We've Got To Make That True For A Whole Variety Of People Who No Longer Feel That.

I Have No Doubt That As The Iraqi Security Forces Get Better, And They Are Getting Better And They Are Holding Territory And They Are Doing These Things With Minimal Help, That We Are Going To Be Able To Bring Down The Levels Of Our Forces. And I Have No Doubt That That's Going To Happen In A Reasonable Time Frame.

Richard Clarke Had Plenty Of Opportunities To Tell Us, In The Administration, That He Thought The War On Terrorism Was Moving In The Wrong Direction And He Chose Not To.

The Sooner You Learn That Life Is Not Fair, The Better Off You'll Be, Because You'll Spend Less Time Railing Against Life's Unfairness And Feeling Aggrieved And Entitled, And More Time Figuring Out How To Maximize Your Assets, And Your Talents And How To Deal With Things That You're Not Very Good At.

People Want To Psychoanalyze Me, But The Fact Is, I'm Not That Complicated. I'm Pretty Straightforward. And I'm Not All That Self-reflective, Because I Tend To Be A Doer.

Straightforward

Race Is A Constant Factor In American Life. Yet Reacting To Every Incident,real Or Imagined, Is Crippling, Tiring, And Ultimately Counterproductive.

There Is Not Going To Be Any Pass For Palestinian Leadership In Fighting Terror.

If You're Always In The Company Of People Who Agree With You, You're Going To Think Of People Who Don't Agree With You As Venal Or Stupid. I Constantly Tell My Students That If They're In The Company Of People Who Always Say "amen" To What You Say, Find Other Company. And That Is The Source Of Illiberalism, When You Are Unable To Listen To Someone Who Thinks Differently. That's When Democracies Are In Trouble.

I've Found My Place In Life, That I'm Passionate About, My Talents And My Passion Have Merged, And I'm Trying To Do The Best That I Can.

I'm A Committed Republican. I Believe Very Strongly In Individual Liberty. I Tend Not To Think Much In Terms Of Group Politics. I Really Am A Kind Of Small Government Person And I'm Most Certainly A Fiscal Conservative And Strong On National Defense.

Fortunately, I Started Very Young, So I Read Music Very Well. And My Favorite Composers To Play Are Brahms And Mozart.

My Job Is To Try To Advance American Foreign Policy, To Try To Advance The President's Agenda On Democracy And Human Rights.

I Think The Word Of The United States Has Been As Good As Gold In Its International Dealings And Its Agreements.

I Don't Know Anyone Who Is More Admired And Respected In The International Community Than President Karzai, For His Strength, For His Wisdom And For His Courage To Lead This Country First In The Defeat Of The Taliban And Now In Rebuilding A Democratic And Unified Afghanistan. And I Can Tell You I Am With Foreign Ministers And With Heads Of State All Over The World. I Sit In The Councils Of Nato. I Sit With The Eu. I Sit With People All Over The World And There Is Great Admiration For Your President And Also For What The Afghan People Are Doing Here.

Education Is Of No Value And Talent Is Worthless - Unless You Have An Unwavering Aim. Never Find Yourself Without A Compass.

Finding Yourself

I Am Proud Of The Decision Of This Administration To Overthrow Saddam Hussein. I Am Proud Of The Liberation Of 25 Million Iraqis. And I'm Proud To See An Iraq That Is Now Emerging With A Stronger Government, A Truly Multiethnic, Multi-sectarian Government That's About To Have Its Second Set Of Elections, That's Inviting Private Investment Into Iraq, And That Is Making Peace With Its Arab Neighbors.

I Think It's Very Humble To Believe That There Is No Man, Woman Or Child Who Should Live In Tyranny. That People Who Say, Well, Maybe Arabs Just Aren't Ready For Democracy Or Maybe Africans Just Are Going To Have Corrupt Governments, That Seems To Me Arrogant.

The Political Face Of Europe Is One That Has Said Very Clearly That It Wants Cooperation And Friendship With The United States.

I've Always Said That I Expected To Grow Up And Get Married Like Any Nice Southern Girl, But The Fact Is You Don't Get Married In The Abstract. You Find Someone That You'd Like To Be Married To.

You Will Make A Difference In The World, But Not Immediately. Your First Obligation Is To Find Something You Like Doing, Because If You Like Doing It, You'll Do It Well.

Making A Difference

Every Life Is Capable Of Greatness.

First, I Wanted To Answer The Question I'm Most Frequently Asked: "how Did You Become Who You Are?" Well, You Had To Know John And Angelena Rice.

If You Cannot Allow People To Do Their Jobs ... Nobody With Substance And Creativity Will Work For You.

Most Middle-class Americans, Even Working-class Americans, Encounter Each Other Across Racial Lines All The Time, But It Gets Really Hard-core When You Get Into That Witches' Brew That Is The Combination Of Race And Poverty.

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.

Oh, Indeed There Is A Tie Between Iraq And What Happened On 9/11. It's Not That Saddam Hussein Was Somehow Himself And His Regime Involved In 9/11, But, If You Think About What Caused 9/11, It Is The Rise Of Ideologies Of Hatred That Lead People To Drive Airplanes Into Buildings In New York.

The United States Has No Credible Evidence That Iraq Moved Weapons Of Mass Destruction Into Syria Early Last Year Before The U.s.-led War That Drove Saddam Hussein From Power.

Mass Destruction

I Talked About The Need For American Leadership, I Talked About The Importance Of The United States To A More Peaceful World, A World That Has Been Quite Turbulent In Recent Years, And Needs A Strong American Anchor.

We Have To Recognize That The Reason That The Global Order That We've Enjoyed And Almost Take For Granted Over The Last Several Years Exists Is That After World War Ii, The United States And Its Allies Tried To Build An Antidote To What They Had Seen Between World War I And World War Ii. There, They'd Seen Protectionism, Beggar-thy-neighbor Trading Policies, So They Said, We'll Build An Open International Economy. And They Did That.

It Takes Courage To Set Priorities Because Doing So Is An Admission That American Policy Cannot Be All Things To All People - Or Rather To All Interest Groups

[my Favorite Dish To Cook] Is Fried Chicken, And By The Way I'm Good At It, Too. I Make Really Good Fried Chicken.

I Don't Like Anything That's "just An Escape." To Me The Best Part Of Golf Is That, Unlike My Tennis Game, I Can Actually Get Better. I've Probably Reached My Plateau In Tennis, But In Golf I Have A Lot Of Room For Improvement. I Really Enjoy Working On My Game. I Like Practicing. I Chart My Rounds.

It's Important To Russia To Be Able To Attract Capital And To Attract Technology To Develop Their Oil Fields, Their Oil And Gas Fields, Many Of Which Suffer From Lack Of Access To The Very Best Technologies. And It's Also Important, And This Has Been The Us Government's View To Have Diversification Of Supply, Diversification Of Supply Roots And, Of Course, Diversification In Terms Of Alternative Energy.

Punish France, Ignore Germany, And Forgive Russia.

American National Security And American Economic Interests, Of Course - Every President, Every Secretary Of State - That Is The Primary Goal. As You Are In This Job And In The Work, You Begin To See, Though, That In The Long Run, Both American Economic Interests And American National Security Are Better Served When There Are Other Decent Countries In The World Who Are Both Your Allies And Even When Your Adversaries Are Acting More Decently.

To See An African-american Elected President Means That This Country Is Really Finally Coming Full Circle From The Birth Defect Of Slavery.

Well, I Didn't Feel That I Could Do Justice To This Story Of My Parents And Their Generation, And All That They Did To Make It Possible For Me To Be Who I Am, If I Sort Of Just Put It At The Beginning Of A Book About My Last Eight Years In Foreign Policy.

I Don't Think Anybody Can Take The Word Of Saddam Hussein And His Regime, And Certainly An American President And Allies Who Are Obligated To Worry About The Safety And Security Of Our Countries, Cannot Take The Word Of This Dictator, Who Lies, Pathologically Lies.

The Quicker We Get About The Business Of Reducing Our Reliance On Oil The Better.

I Learned A Lot About My Parents, Who Were Both Teachers. I Had Known That My Parents Were Very Strongly In Favor Of Education. I Had Known That They Had An Impact On A Lot Of People, But People Came Out Of The Woodwork Who Have Said, "you Know, Without Your Father, I Would Never Have Gone To College," Very Successful People. And So I Learned How Widespread Their Educational Evangelism Really Was.

I Think There Are Plenty Of Men Out There Who Are Capable And Accomplished In Their Own Realm. You Don't Have To Be In The Same Field.

Diplomacy, If Properly Practiced, Is Not Just Talking For The Sake Of Talking.

I've Been An Athlete All My Life. I Was A Competitive Figure Skater, And Then When I Realized Skating Was Not An Adult Sport I Took Up Tennis And Played That Quite Seriously From The Time I Was About 18.

Prejudice And Bigotry Are Brought Down...by The Sheer Force Of Determination Of Individuals To Succeed And The Refusal Of A Human Being To Let Prejudice Define The Parameters Of The Possible.

If I Wrote A Book, I Had To Be Willing At Least To Talk About Some Of My Struggles, Whether In My Personal Life, Health Crises, Or The Deaths Of My Parents, Because There Can Too Easily Be A Perception Of Me That My Life Just Went From A To Z Uninterrupted, Without Any Ups And Downs, And That's Not A Fair Representation.

One Of The Signs That Things Are Going Reasonably Well For Democracy Is That We Have The States Where They're Closer To The People. Federalism Is A Strength. We Have All Of These Civil Society Institutions - Civil Society Is A Very Important Hallmark Of Democracy.

The U.s. Has Since The End Of World War Ii Had An Answer - We Stand For Free Peoples And Free Markets, We Are Willing To Support And Defend Them - We Will Sustain A Balance Of Power That Favors Freedom.

I Laugh Almost Everyday. I Have A Good Sense Of Humor, So I'm Always Finding Something Funny.

I'm Not Personally Fearful, But I Look Out, And There Are A Number Of Things That Concern Me, And I'm Hopeful That We Can Overcome Them.

We're In The Middle Of The Transformation Of A Society That Has Handled Its Politics Through Repression To A Society That Will Handle Its Politics Through Democratic Institutions.

We're All Products Of Our Environment, And I Suspect That Strength Of Will - The Feeling, "i'm Going To Be Able To Do Whatever You Put In Front Of Me" - Is Honed In An Environment Where Not Everything Is Easy. Ironically, Growing Up In That Environment, You Don't Have A Sense Of Aggrievement Or Entitlement. You Just Have A Sense Of Overcoming.

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.

The Moral Case Is, People Say, "oh They're Not Ready For Democracy," But That's Something Someone Who Lives In A Democracy Would Say About Someone Who Doesn't Live In A Democracy. Well, If Democracy Is The Highest Form Of Human Potential, Then It Can't Be True For Us And Not For Them. But, The Practical Case Is Democracies Don't Invade Their Neighbors. Democracies Don't Traffic In Child Soldiers. Democracies Don't Harbor Terrorists As A State Policy. So There's A Reason To Have More Democratic States.

The Growth Of Entrepreneurial Classes Throughout The World Is An Asset In The Promotion Of Human Rights And Individual Liberty, And It Should Be Understood And Used As Such. Yet Peace Is The First And Most Important Condition For Continued Prosperity And Freedom. America's Military Power Must Be Secure Because The United States Is The Only Guarantor Of Global Peace And Stability. The Current Neglect Of America's Armed Forces Threatens Its Ability To Maintain Peace.

This Is The Democratic Process At Work, What You're Seeing With This Process Is The Iraqi People Embracing American-style Democracy.

Your Passion May Be Hard To Spot, So Keep An Open Mind And Keep Searching.

Nato Is Built On Security, But It's Also Built On Values.

So I Think, If September 11 Taught Us Anything, It Taught Us That We're Vulnerable, And Vulnerable In Ways That We Didn't Fully Understand.

For 60 Years, My Country, The United States, Pursued Stability At The Expense Of Democracy In This Region, Here In The Middle East, And We Achieved Neither.

It Has Been, After All, 11 Years, More Than A Decade Now, Of Defiance Of U.n. Resolutions By Saddam Hussein. Every Obligation That He Signed Onto After The Gulf War, So That He Would Not Be A Threat To Peace And Security, He Has Ignored And Flaunted.

Well, Of Course, All Of The Statistics Say There Are Fewer Eligible Black Men In My Circle. But I've Never Thought Of It That Way. I Believe That If The Right Person Came Into My Life That Would Have Been Terrific.

Today's Headlines And History's Judgement Are Not The Same.

Every Life Is Worthy And Every Life Is Capable Of Greatness. We Have An Obligation To Make Sure That Opportunity For Greatness Is There.

The Iranian People Have A Proud Past. They Merit A Great Future.

What We Will Not Wait For Is That Particular Nexus Of Terrorism, Weapons Of Mass Destruction That Is Extremism, And The Technology To Come Together In A Way That Is Harmful To The United States.

Mass Destruction

I Studied Piano From The Age Of Three. My Grandmother Taught Piano. I Stayed At Her House During The Day While My Parents Worked. I Obviously Wanted To Learn To Play. And So She Asked If She Could Teach Me, And My Mother Said Don't You Think She's Too Young. My Grandmother Apparently Said No. So I Could Read Music Before I Could Read, And I Really Don't Remember Learning To Read Music. So For Me It's Like A Native Language. When I Look At A Sheet Of Music, It Just Makes Sense.

Well, There Are Many Things, Whenever You Look Back, That You Would've Done Differently. We're All Human. We Do Our Best At The Time. I Really Wish That We Had Passed A Comprehensive Immigration Bill Because That Would've Really Helped Our Country. We Came Close, But We Couldn't.

But The Truth Of The Matter Is, We're An Open Society, We Want To Remain An Open Society, And There Will Continue To Be Vulnerability. That's Why We Have To Meet The Threats When They Are Not Yet Taking Place On Our Territory And On Our Soil.

I Remember At The Time Of 9/11 That There Were Women Who Went Out Of Their Way To Escort Muslim Women To Grocery Stores Because They Wanted To Be Sure That They Didn't Experience Any Prejudice. And So I'm Not One Who Believes That America Is A Country That's Intolerant. It's The Most Tolerant Country In The World, And I Really Think That It's Unfortunate That A Number Of People Are Trying To Paint America With This Brush. I Just Don't See It.

Most Of The People Who Were Responsible For 9/11 Are Now In Custody Or Have Been Killed. But There Are Others, And They Plot And They Plan, And They Hope To Pull It Off Again. And While We Have To Be Right 100 Percent Of The Time, They Only Have To Be Right Once. So There's No Way To Overreact To That.

If I Can Look At Your Zip Code And I Can Tell Whether You're Going To Get A Good Education, We've Got A Real Problem.

I Do Have A Favorite Zeppelin Song, Larry, Black Dog.

What The United States Has Done Hasn't Always Been Liked Or Popular. But If You Look At Some Of The Most Populous Places In The World - China, India - The United States Is Not Only Respected But, In Fact, Popular.

Great Leaders Never Accept The World As It Was And Always Work For The World As It Should Be

Every Good Leader Is Part Manager And Every Good Manager Is Part Leader.

I Play A Lot Chamber Music.as For Something That's Hard For Me To Play, Before I Leave This Earth I'm Hoping To Play Brahms' Second Piano Concerto.

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Mangosuthu Buthelezi

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