Hillary Clinton in Her Own Words

   Introduction

“I’ve had every opportunity and blessing in my own life, and I want the same for all Americans. Until that day comes, you will always find me on the front lines of democracy: fighting for the future.”

Hillary Rodham Clinton concedes her bid for the presidency, June 7, 2008

IT’S HARD TO BELIEVE that Hillary Clinton has been making headlines for several decades, but once her term as one of the most admired secretaries of state in history drew to a close in 2012, all eyes naturally turned to what her plans would be during the years leading up to the 2016 presidential campaign season.

Representative Nancy Pelosi recently admitted to MSNBC that she was excited by the prospect of seeing a second Clinton in the Oval Office. “She could be president of the United States and she would be great,” Pelosi said. “She would go into the White House as well prepared . . . or better prepared . . . than almost anybody who has served in that office in a very long time.”

Surprisingly, even her most dogged detractors concede that it would be difficult to run against her. “The Republican Party is incapable of competing at that level,” said none other than Newt Gingrich during an appearance on NBC’s Meet the Press. “First of all, she’s very formidable as a person,” he said. “She’s a very competent person. She’s married to the most popular Democrat in the country, and they both think [it] would be good for her to be president. It makes it virtually impossible to stop her for the nomination.”

She has certainly proven that she has the stamina and fortitude to serve as president: In her tenure as secretary of state, by her own estimation, she traveled to 112 countries, clocking close to a million miles, a schedule that would send most of her Washington cohorts falling by the wayside.

And early public sentiment is overwhelmingly favorable: A December 2012 Washington Post poll found that 68 percent of Americans approved of her accomplishments as secretary of state, 66 percent had a favorable opinion of her, and 57 percent would support her as a presidential candidate.

With these figures, it’s not surprising that Clinton was named as the most admired woman for the eleventh year in a row in a recent Gallup Poll; in all, she’s made the list seventeen times, more than any other woman. Interest in Clinton only continues to climb; plus, she has a cool factor that was only enhanced when the Texts from Hillary Tumblr site went viral almost from the first post in spring 2012, showing her in sunglasses on the C-17 military plane she customarily traveled on and texting on her BlackBerry.

No less than Hollywood has taken notice: Rodham, a much-buzzed-about screenplay that is gaining traction, covers Clinton’s formidable twenty-something years and is rumored to be on the fast track for green-lighting; actresses rumored to be clamoring for the lead include Emma Stone, Ellen Page, and Lena Dunham.

But Hillary is more than just politics; after all, she’s held numerous important leadership positions in her career, from high-powered lawyer to two-term First Lady, in addition to being a respected senator and secretary of state. Plus, she’s been through more than a few rough-and-tumble periods in her life; indeed, many men and women around the world have followed her as she’s been knocked down through the years only to pick herself right up again.

In this way, Hillary Clinton in Her Own Words accomplishes several purposes, regardless of what her plans for 2016 turn out to be. First, the book will appeal to politically minded readers who can learn where she’s stood on a wide variety of issues over the years; it will serve as a refresher course for those who have followed her life over the decades she’s spent in public life as well as provide an introduction for younger readers who may be acquainted with the former First Lady only as a world diplomat.

Next, her words will educate businesspeople who want to learn about her philosophies on leadership. After all, her roaring success as secretary of state was due in no small part to her ability to negotiate and communicate with world leaders often holding very different agendas.

Finally, Clinton’s words will motivate and inspire people around the world who look to her as an example of the courage and fortitude they can source in their own lives.

Regardless of your reason for picking up Hillary Clinton in Her Own Words, after reading her words on everything from motherhood to the role of government, you will undoubtedly come away with a new understanding and broader picture of the woman who just may become the next president of the United States.

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Quotations

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Abortion

I am and always have been pro-choice, and . . . it is not a right that any of us should take for granted. There are a number of forces at work in our society that would try to turn back the clock and undermine a woman’s right to choose, and we must remain vigilant.

The New York Times, January 22, 2000

I’ve been saying the same thing for as long as I can remember: I believe abortion should be safe, legal, and rare. I do think women should have a choice but also that women should be making responsible decisions. I think people who have been pro-choice have basically gotten lazy about [being politically active].

Marie Claire, August 24, 2007

Forces are aligned to change this country and strip away the rights we enjoy and have come to expect. Slowly, methodically, quietly, they have begun chipping away at the reproductive rights of women. And if those rights fall, other rights will follow. Their goal is to supplant modern society with a society that fits into their narrow worldview. It all starts with an assault on Roe.

Speech, NARAL, January 22, 2004

I think abortion should remain legal, but it needs to be safe and rare. And I have spent many years now, as a private citizen, as First Lady, and now as senator, trying to make it rare, trying to create the conditions where women had other choices. I have supported adoption and foster care. I helped to create the campaign against teenage pregnancy, which fulfilled our original goal ten years ago of reducing teenage pregnancies by about a third. And I am committed to do even more.

Democratic Candidates Compassion Forum, Messiah College, April 13, 2008

I have met thousands and thousands of pro-choice men and women. I have never met anyone who is pro-abortion. Being pro-choice is not being pro-abortion. Being pro-choice is trusting the individual to make the right decision for herself and her family and not entrusting that decision to anyone wearing the authority of government in any regard.

Speech, NARAL, January 22, 1999

Age

I feel so relieved to be at the stage I’m at in my life right now, because if I want to wear my glasses, I’m wearing my glasses. If I want to pull my hair back, I’m pulling my hair back. And at some point it’s just not something that deserves a whole lot of time and attention, and if others want to worry about it, I’ll let them do the worrying for a change.

CNN, May 8, 2012

Agricultural Policy

We have to have more focus on family farms. We’ve got to do more to make sure trade agreements are not only good for the exporting of agricultural products from great, big agribusiness, but also for small farmers. We’ve got to do more to build up the agricultural and rural areas of our country.

Democratic Primary Debate, This Week with George Stephanopoulos, August 19, 2007

America

I believe our values represent the greatest accomplishment in political history and the history of the world, and those values are not just American values. So I believe the United States has both an opportunity and obligation to make clear around the world that democracy and freedom, free market economies that are open, and meritocracies, providing support for people’s human rights and those fundamental badges of liberty that we know enhance your God-given potential, that’s who we are as a people.

The Today Show, October 12, 2011

We always led with our values, and the idea that, unlike most other leading nations in history in the world, we weren’t out to build an empire, we were not out to impose an ideology on the unwilling. We happen to believe that we best represent the full flowering of the human potential, and therefore, we want to exemplify it, we want to stand for it, and we want to lead toward it.

Time, October 27, 2011

We have a system that truly does work, if only we become involved in it.

Hillary Rodham Clinton: A First Lady for Our Time, 1999

American Leadership

We do have to keep innovating and integrating. We have to get our house here at home in order. We have to avoid devastating self-inflicted wounds. We have to remain committed to upholding America’s global leadership and our core values of freedom and opportunity.

Speech, Joint Civilian Service Award Presentation, February 14, 2013

I think when you inherit the range of problems that we have, from one end of the world to the other—the threats that we faced, the two wars that we inherited—I think trying to have a very clear approach to actually dealing with those problems [and promoting] American leadership at this time in our history is about as big an idea as you can get.

Newsweek, April 22, 2010

The American Political System

What’s great about our political system is that we are all judged on our own merits.

Democratic Primary Debate, Los Angeles, January 31, 2008

America’s Greatest Threat

The greatest threat to us as a nation is that we start looking both inward and backward, and that we begin to doubt ourselves, and that we don’t even believe as much in ourselves as others still believe in us.

Time, October 27, 2011

America’s Role in the World

Our country is not only the leader of the world, but we are expected to be by countless nations around the globe. And yes, we have challenges here at home, but these are challenges that we can meet. I’m very confident and optimistic about what America is capable of. I’ve lived through in my life a lot of ups and downs in our country, but you can never count America out and you should never bet against America.

The Today Show, October 12, 2011

I cannot tell you how many people say things to me like, “Well, we don’t always agree with what the Americans do, but we don’t think you have ill motives or ill intent. We think sometimes you don’t do the right thing.” And it’s funny because there’s that overarching impression that we’re not out to build an empire, we’re not out to take over these countries, we’re not out to enslave them.

Reuters, October 13, 2011

We can’t just walk out of the arena and leave these important decisions to somebody else because it’s messy, it’s difficult, it requires compromise. That is what you have to do on the world stage today. We remain the strongest country in the world, but the way we exercise that leadership has changed dramatically.

Newsweek, April 22, 2010

The United States can’t solve all of the problems in the world. But the problems in the world can’t be solved without the United States. And therefore, we have to husband our resources, among which is this incredibly valuable asset of global leadership, and figure out how we can best deploy it.

The New York Times Magazine, June 27, 2012

The United States bears a disproportionate amount of the burden for trying to maintain peace and security and prosperity across the globe. I wish there were a way we could tell a lot of countries what they should do.

The Secretary, 2013

Her Appearance

If I want to knock a story off the front page, I just change my hairstyle.

Newsweek, June 4, 1995

Everything I said or did—and even what I wore—became a hot button for debate. Hair and fashion were my first clues. For most of my life I had paid little attention to my clothes. I liked headbands. They were easy, and I couldn’t imagine that they suggested anything good, bad or indifferent about me to the American public. But during the campaign, some of my friends began a mission to spruce up my appearance. They brought me racks of clothes to try on, and they told me the headband had to go. What they understood, and I didn’t, was that a First Lady’s appearance matters. I was no longer representing only myself. I was asking the American people to let me represent them in a role that has conveyed everything from glamour to comfort.

Living History, 2003

Asia

We do see Asia as part of America’s future. We are both a transatlantic and a transpacific power. And part of what I hope we can do is better understand and create the kind of future that will benefit both Asians and Americans.

The Secretary, 2013

Balancing Your Life

Most of us will at some point get married and have children, and how you balance that really depends on the quality of your friends and whether your friends are there for you. It also depends on what the policies are in your workplace.

Marie Claire, August 24, 2007

The first lesson I’ve learned is that no matter what you do in your life, you have to figure out your own internal rhythms—I mean, what works for you doesn’t necessarily work for your friend. I try to schedule at least one day a week to catch up, to feel like I’m breathing again.

Marie Claire, August 24, 2007

Becoming a Grandmother

Let me just say I love babies, so maybe I’ll have more in my life someday.

Good Morning America, January 18, 2011

Being Secretary of State

The work that I tried to do was intense and personal because I saw no other way around getting out there, not only interacting with governments but wading into popular culture, people to people, because I also had been absorbing data about what just average people thought about the United States. . . . So it was a great effort to get back out there.

The Economist, March 22, 2012

It’s never the same, literally from hour to hour, which is why the job is so exciting for me.

The Today Show, October 12, 2011

What I have found hardest to balance is the amount of travel that is expected today. One would think that in an era where communication is instantaneous, you would not have to get on an airplane and go sit in a meeting. But, in fact, it’s almost as though people are more desirous of seeing someone in person.

Newsweek, December 20, 2009

One of my goals upon becoming Secretary of State was to take diplomacy out of capitals, out of government offices, into the media, into the streets of countries. So from the very beginning in February of 2009, I have tried to combine the necessary diplomacy of government meetings, of creating structures in which we enhance our participation government-to-government with people-to-people diplomacy.

Time, October 27, 2011

Part of my mission has been to make it clear that American leadership was back. What I found when I became Secretary of State was a lot of doubts and a lot of concerns and fears from friends, allies, around the world. And so part of what I have tried to do as Secretary of State is to reassert American leadership, but to recognize that in twenty-first century terms we have to lead differently than the way we historically have done.

Time, October 27, 2011

There might be times when our criticism is private and other times when it’s public, when it’s a one-off, and other times when it’s persistent—because you’re always trying to calibrate what will work. I mean, I’m not into just criticizing for the sake of criticizing. You’re trying to give voice to and support to people who are standing up for values that are important.

PBS Newshour with Jim Lehrer, December 14, 2011

It’s an impossible job, because in the world we live in, it is 24/7, there is no respite. . . . I would like to say okay, I think I’ll just concentrate on the Middle East, on our relations with China, on the reset with Russia. Okay, well then what about everybody else and everything that they’re doing, and the importance of other countries, other regions, to our future? For example, Latin America is one of the most important regions to America’s future. We have more trade with our friends in Latin America than anywhere else in the world. We have democratic values in common with the vast majority of countries. So we can’t afford to say okay, well fine, we’re not going to be engaged in and working on these issues. We have to be open to being a part of making the world better everywhere. And that is a big challenge.

The Today Show, October 12, 2011

Being True to Herself

You have to be true to yourself. You have to be enough in touch with who you are and what you want, how you want to live and what’s important to you, to make your decisions based on that. Sometimes that’s very difficult. Sometimes it’s hard to have your own internal voice be heard . . . it’s hard because you’ve got society with expectations and you’ve got family, friends, and others who are expressing opinions. When you’re in the public eye, it’s like open season with the entire world. You have just one life to live. It is yours. Own it, claim it, live it, do the best you can with it.

Marie Claire, October 18, 2012

The Bible