President Obama has made the Asia Pacific region a focus of his foreign policy, and Vietnam - a large, growing economy in the heart of Southeast Asia - is critical to those efforts.

I think one of the critiques of me is that I thought I knew it all. But I was learning from the enormous resources available within the U.S. government who have a very different view of the world than many of the people commenting on foreign policy from outside of the government.

When it comes to Israel's security, our military and intelligence cooperation, that's off limits. That's protected. That's sacrosanct.

Talking and diplomacy is often seen as a concession in America, in a way that it is not in other places.

Western civilization, Christianity, decency are struggling for their very lives. In this worldwide civil war, race prejudice is our most dangerous enemy, for it is a disease at the very root of our democratic life.

Doing any kind of culture in America in which you are not trying to affirm a European aesthetic is war.

The use and threat of force, when world peace is not in danger, are no longer valid frames of reference for achieving the ends sought today by sovereign nations.

Both parents worshiped individual achievement, but because of the Depression and the war, they never achieved what they wanted and deserved. So their ambition and high expectations were transferred to me.