The best armor against everything around you is to be well educated, to work hard, to be twice as good as if you had to be, to do languages and culture better.

Great leaders never accept the world as it was and always work for the world as it should be

I worry a great deal about all of those surveys that are out that Americans, in particular, are becoming distrustful of our institutions - that Americans are beginning to say they're either irrelevant or they're corrupt or they certainly don't speak to me. But the institutions are actually still functioning.

Human beings are not perfect. Their institutions are not perfect, but they have to keep trying. And America has to help people keep trying.

It was really wonderful playing with Aretha [ Franklin]. I knew that she knew what she was doing, so all I had to do was sit in the background and vamp a little bit.

I think there's sometimes too much attention to a few people who do hold extreme views. Most Americans go about their lives living in communities that are increasingly multiethnic, increasingly multi-religious. And they are welcoming of people who are not like themselves. Now, I don't have rose-colored glasses about America, because I grew up in the segregated South. But I watch it every day. I think that Americans are very tolerant people.

You do have to keep in mind as you're going through extraordinarily difficult circumstances, that if you stay true, true to your values, if you stay true to your principles, if you believe in these values, then you can work in that context to right policies that may not be working.