Quotes from Madeleine Albright

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.

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 hope I'm wrong, but I am afraid that Iraq is going to turn out to be the greatest disaster in American foreign policy - worse than Vietnam, not in the number who died, but in terms of its unintended consequences and its reverberation throughout the region.

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 the fight.

The day-to-day making of policy is arguing all the time. You're trying to get the right approach and the right answer, and there are moments that aren't very pleasant. But in the end, you look at the overall product.

I loved what I did. I could've been secretary of state for ever.

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 the fight.

Hate, emotionalism, and frustration are not policies.

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' approach that was evident in the previous eight years.

I can't see democracy occurring by force - after an Iraqi war, because of the fallout from that.

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

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 her lifetime, it's true. But at the time it really was a big deal.