When I'm unhappy with something, people know, because I don't want to hold on to it. I'd rather deal immediately with the stuff that bothers me, so using my network - my girlfriends, my husband, my mom - I talk a lot, I vent.

I never cut class. I loved getting A's, I liked being smart. I liked being on time. I thought being smart is cooler than anything in the world.

I believe that each of us-no matter what our age or background or walk of life-each of us has something to contribute to the life of this nation.

Whether an illness affects your heart, your leg or your brain, it's still an illness, and there should be no distinction.

I had the honor of meeting a young Pakistani woman named Malala Yousafzai, who was shot and nearly killed just for trying to go to school. I also heard about how nearly 300 girls in Nigeria were kidnapped from their school dorms in the middle of the night. There are girls like this in every corner of the globe. In fact, there are more than 62 million girls worldwide not attending school, and that's an outrage.

African American children are significantly more likely to be obese than are white children. Nearly half of African American children will develop diabetes at some point in their lives. People, that's half of our children. ...We can build our kids the best schools on earth, but if they don't have the basic nutrition they need to concentrate, they're still going to have a challenge learning.

There's no expert on this planet who says that the government telling people what to do actually does any good with this issue, this is going to require an effort on everyone's part.