Quotes

[on 9/11] I don't want to sound Pollyannaish, but I hope that out of a tragedy like this something good will come. I hope we understand we're one family.

[on the legacy of US President George W. Bush] I wrote my book "Memo to the President-Elect" for the next President because [he or she] is going to have a very hard job to do. Our reputation is the lowest that it has ever been. This presidency has done a great deal of damage, and I'm very glad that it will end.

I have spent a lifetime looking for remedies to all manner of life's problems - personal, social, political, global. I am deeply suspicious of those who offer simple solutions and statements of absolute certainty or who claim full possession of the truth. Yet I have grown equally skeptical of those who suggest that all is too nuanced and complex for us to learn any lessons, that there are so many sides to everything that we can pursue knowledge every day of our lives and still know nothing for sure. I believe we can recognize truth when we see it, just not at first and not without ever relenting in our efforts to learn more. This is because the goal we seek, and the good we hope for, comes as not as some final reward but as the hidden companion to our quest. It is not what we find, but the reason that we cannot stop looking and striving, that tells us why we are here.

There's a special place in hell for women who don't help each other.

[on Donald Trump's fitness to make foreign-policy decisions as Commander-in-Chief] You need a President who actually knows where the countries are.

[In 1997, Albright was named the first female Secretary of State and became, at that time, the highest-ranking woman in the history of the U.S. government. While serving under President Bill Clinton, first as U.S ambassador to the United Nations, and then as Secretary of State, Albright became known for wearing brooches that purposefully conveyed her views about the situation at hand.] "I found that jewelry had become part of my personal diplomatic arsenal," Secretary Albright has said. "While President George H.W. Bush had been known for saying 'Read my lips,' I began urging colleagues and reporters to 'Read my pins.'"

The question, 'How did you do it all?' may be the biggest compliment a mother can get from her adult children.