Every president who has tried to bring about big changes I think elicits the most passionate responses.

The underlying struggle - between worlds of plenty and worlds of want; between the modern and the ancient; between those who embrace our teeming, colliding, irksome diversity, while still insisting on a set of values that binds us together, and those who would seek, under whatever flag or slogan or sacred text, a certainty and simplification that justifies cruelty toward those not like us.

Obviously, if Congress wants to talk about anything, we're happy to provide information. We're committed to moving forward under the current act.

Even if the criticism is not always perfectly informed and in some cases I would deem unfair, just the noise, attention, fuss probably keeps powerful officials or agencies on their toes. And they should be on their toes when it comes to the use of deadly force.

One of the gratifying things, I think, about the end of my presidency even though admittedly my successor ran against a lot of what we stood for, is when you look at the individual issues and the progress that we've made on a lot of those issues, we got the support of a pretty decent majority.

This doesn't mean abandoning our values and ideals; wherever we can, it's in our interest to help foster democracy through the diplomatic and economic resources at our disposal.

If you're a strong man, you should not feel threatened by strong women.