The United States, therefore, works to ensure that any actions we take are consistent with international laws and norms - including those reflected in the Law of the Sea Convention. It's worth remembering that our presence in the region is nothing new.

The best judge of whether or not a country is going to develop is how it treats its women. If it's educating its girls, if women have equal rights, that country is going to move forward. But if women are oppressed and abused and illiterate, then they're going to fall behind.

You not only do you appreciate the sacrifices people have made and the hours they've kept and the soccer games they missed and the birthday parties, but I also had a lot of young people who came in here [to White House], and this probably, you know, echoes with you, in your own experience, you were young when you got here.

Fighting for what you think is right is always worth it.

What I want to communicate is the fact that in all my travels throughout the Muslim world, what I've come to understand is that regardless of your faith - and America is a country of Muslims, Jews, Christians, non-believers - regardless of your faith, people all have certain common hopes and common dreams.

Even those who claim the Bible's inerrancy make distinctions between Scriptural edicts, sensing that some passages - the Ten Commandments, say, or a belief in Christ's divinity - are central to Christian faith, while others are more culturally specific and may be modified to accommodate modern life.

The surest path to success is to surround yourself with brilliant women