David Petraeus Quotes

People often ask, why aren't you reading about what it is you're working on right now? And the truth is, you only get three pages a night before your eyelids close.

The job of the leader is to get the big ideas right.

After being married for over 37 years, I showed extremely poor judgment by engaging in an extramarital affair.

I am not a politician, and I will never be, and I say that with absolute conviction.

Political progress will only take place if sufficient security exists.

I'm living the dream.

The fact is that Iran doesn't want to see the Taliban come back any more than do most Afghan citizens.

Every civilian's death diminishes us, collectively.

Don't forget Yemen, where there are also extremist elements, as we saw recently.

I think Putin wants to recreate as much of the Soviet Union as he can through a variety of different means. He's invaded parts of Georgia, took Crimea, southeastern Ukraine, bases in other countries.

I think no commander ever is going to come out and say, 'I'm confident that we can do this.

Money can be a very important form of "ammunition," although we should never forget that when you're being shot at the most important ammunition is real ammunition.

Progress in Iraq has always been about teams of people and teams of teams - and ultimately about young men and women, Iraqi as well as people from the coalition.

The president and I sat down in the Oval Office, and he expressed very clearly that what he wants from me is my best professional military advice.

Afghanistan has other enormous challenges as well, including a political system that is still very much developing, although there has been some progress in the past several years.

This cannot be the United States being the air force for Shia militias, or a Shia on Sunni Arab fight.

ISIS is on its way to defeat but terrorism threat persists.

Iraq has gone from being on the brink to being on the mend, and it clearly has some big advantages.

The task [in Afghanistan] is to reduce civilian casualties while still not hesitating to respond to enemies who are trying to kill our soldiers.

I will not ever run for political office, I can assure you of that.

There has, indeed, been very substantial progress in Iraq over the past year - violence is down by 80 percent, civilian deaths by about the same, and so on.

I am neither a pessimist nor an optimist. I am a realist, and the reality in Iraq is that it has been very hard and it continues to be hard.

We cleared many of their towns and cities and rural areas of al-Qaida Iraq and other insurgents.

US Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker and I have repeatedly sought to emphasize that the progress in Iraq is fragile and also, possibly, reversible.

There is no military solution to the challenges of Syria.

Pakistan are very keen to carry out the operations themselves. And there's significant effort on the part of the US and other countries to provide assistance that can enable Pakistan to do just that.

The first official statements of President Asif Ali Zardari's new government have been firm and robust. Pakistan is obviously a renewed democracy.

Let's remember that the reason we are there is that we have vital interests in Afghanistan, hugely important national interests, as do the other countries involved.

The Islamic State fighters in Mosul are dead men walking and I think they increasingly know it.

Fighting in cities is a totally different endeavor than obviously fighting out in the open.

You have to keep on disrupting. If you let up the pressure, then al-Qaeda senior leadership will come back.

The idea is to go to bed every night with fewer enemies than you had in the morning.

There is no question in my mind that a 'Brexit' would deal a significant blow to the E.U.'s strength and resilience at exactly the moment when the West is under attack from multiple directions.

Iraq's Sunnis need to be brought back into the fold. They need to feel as though they have a stake in the success of Iraq rather than a stake in its failure.