The people of the Middle East share the desire for freedom. We have an opportunity - and an obligation - to help them turn this desire into reality.

Everywhere that I go in the world, people desperately look to American leadership in all of their world's most difficult problems. You can look at any region of the world and the United States is still the country to which those regions look for leadership.

Today's headlines and history's judgment are rarely the same. If you are too attentive to the former, you will most certainly not do the hard work of securing the latter.

I know that people look at my life and ask, "How can I achieve some of those things?" So, I suppose in that sense, yes, I'm a role model. But I try to think of myself more as a mentor, as somebody who I hope young people feel comfortable approaching or writing to.

I love sports. I play golf now, which is relatively new for me. I only took it up about five years ago. I also like playing piano, and I love being with my family and friends.

I play classical music almost exclusively. I never mastered jazz or gospel in the way that my mother did. She was a fine improvisational musician. I pretty much have to stick to what's written on the page.

It was actually fun to write [memoir], because I went back to interview people my parents had taught or who had worked with them, and I learned a lot about them that I hadn't known.