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.

Every great discovery I ever made, I gambled that the truth was there, and then I acted in faith until I could prove its existence.

Access to books and the encouragement of the habit of reading: these two things are the first and most necessary steps in education and librarians, teachers and parents all over the country know it. It is our children's right and it is also our best hope and their best hope for the future.

The proud intellectual seeks knowledge about God, but he never knows God, because he cannot accept the mysteries that he is unable to fully comprehend.

Growing up, I was encouraged to get a good education, get a real job doing something I enjoyed, and, should the opportunity present itself, consider public service as just that: a chance to serve, not an end in itself.