As you get older, your mind gets a little more set. And it needs the poking and prodding and breaking through of stereotypes that I think young people provide.

The absence of hope can rot a society from within.

When this crisis began, crucial decisions about what would happen to some of the world's biggest companies - companies employing tens of thousands of people and holding trillions of dollars in assets - took place in hurried discussions in the middle of the night. We should not be forced to choose between allowing a company to fall into a rapid and chaotic dissolution or forcing taxpayers to foot the bill.

As I've said many times, the nuclear deal was never intended to resolve all of our differences with Iran. But still, engaging directly with the Iranian government on a sustained basis for the first time in decades has created a unique opportunity, a window, to try to resolve important issues.

In the wake of 9/11, my meetings with Arab and Pakistani Americans, for example, have a more urgent quality, for the stories of detentions and FBI questioning and hard stares from neighbors have shaken their sense of security and belonging. They have been reminded that the history of immigration in this country has a dark underbelly; they need specific reassurances that their citizenship really means something, that America has learned the right lessons from the Japanese internments during World War II, and that I will stand with them should the political winds shift in an ugly direction.

There's something about these steps [in Oval Office] and thinking about everybody who's walked here and all the business that's been done here.

We can still see God in other people and do our best to help them find their own grace. So that’s what I strive to do and pray to do every day.