Defense is not like other discretionary spending.

What I know concerns me. What I don't know concerns me even more. What people aren't telling me worries me the most.

I'm a big advocate of drones.

No policy has proved more successful in making friends for the United States, during the cold war and since, than educating students from abroad at our colleges and universities.

I have tried to maintain civil relationships with everyone I meet - and, even if I violently disagree with them, try to be respectful.

A wild and crazy weekend involves sitting on the front porch, smoking a cigar, reading a book.

I've been very sensitive for a long time to the repeated pattern, during economic hard times or after a war, of the United States' essentially unilaterally disarming.

Even when I was at CIA, I'd go to visit foreign leaders and I'd say, 'You know, I'm not a diplomat. I'm just an old CIA guy'... I said, 'If I wanted to be diplomatic, I'd have been a diplomat.'

One of my favorite little sayings is, 'To avoid criticism, say nothing, do nothing, be nothing.

Future U.S. political leaders – those for whom the Cold War was not the formative experience that it was for me – may not consider the return on America’s investment in NATO worth the cost.

I think that Iran with a nuclear weapon is extremely destabilizing. I think it could precipitate a nuclear arms race in the region.

Sometimes you don’t know when you’re taking the first step through a door until you’re already inside.

Whatever you do to the animals, you do to yourself.

Patience is passion tamed.

Everyone talks about age, but it's not about age. It's about work ethic. Winning never gets old.

My mother's bottom line was truth to her values. It meant bringing your heart and your humanity to work.

You're a woman, enjoy yourself, and believe that you can do things.

You have to start with the basic premise that you need to know what your competition is doing.

I really [enjoy] working with new people and just sort of the freshness of it. ... I [want] to have those new conversations, musically and otherwise.

Other people have more than they need, I alone seem wanting.

Learn to be thankful to everyone, to the entire creation, even to your enemy and also to those who insult, because they all help you to grow