Not feeling like you have to be anywhere else.

Realising that if they were drowning, you’d try to save them.

Like a cosy cloud of softness coupled with an orthopaedic mattress underneath.

A Mary Berry victoria sponge.

The toughest job I had as secretary was having to take the time, usually late at night, to write notes to the families of those who lost loved ones.

But if our institutions of democracy are not working, that is an even greater threat to our national security

When I have a sense that things are screwed up, and I’m just not sure whether or not we’ll find an answer, the thing I do is usually sit at the piano, and I play a song by Beethoven called Para Elisa (Für Elise)

I think what we’re trying to do at the Panetta Institute is to try to get all young people to understand that they have a duty to give back to our country in some capacity.

Now, part of that is the Jesuits at Santa Clara, who taught me about right and wrong. But part of it was just that gut feeling.

The greatest fear I always had in the jobs I was in was that some son of a bitch I never knew or met was going to screw up, and I was going to get blamed for it. [laughs]