When I've sent young men and women into harm's way, I always understand that that is the last resort, not the first resort.

What matters is how well we have loved, and what small part we have played in making the lives around us better.

I don't think that hedge funds are bad per se. I think they're just one more financial tool. And in that sense, they're useful.

One of the things you learn as president is, as powerful as this office is, you have limited bandwidth. And the time goes by really quickly and you're constantly making choices, and there are pressures on you from all different directions - pressures on your attention, not just pressures from different constituencies. And so you have to be pretty focused about where can you have the biggest, quickest impact.

My guiding principle as president has been to try to do the right thing even when it's not politically convenient.

I think that we are in a position to continue to make progress, but it's gonna require us to both recognize what the problems are, also recognize the progress we've made. Last point I'd make on this, since we're on criminal justice: During the course of my presidency crime has been the lowest it's been probably since the '60s.

Effective immediately, we will only pursue phone calls that are two steps removed from a number associated with a terrorist organization instead of three.