Volunteering is an act of heroism on a grand scale. And it matters profoundly. It does more than help people beat the odds; it changes the odds.

It's the biggest public health problem in America, the rising rates of obesity among our young people and very heavy statistics among our adult population.

I did attempt to find out if there were any secret government documents that revealed things. If there were, they were concealed from me too. And if there were, well I wouldn't be the first American president that underlings have lied to, or that career bureaucrats have waited out. But there may be some career person sitting around somewhere, hiding these dark secrets, even from elected presidents. But if so, they successfully eluded me...and I'm almost embarrassed to tell you I did (chuckling) try to find out.

The future is not an inheritance, it is an opportunity and an obligation.

You know, there was a recent poll which said that young people in the generation of the students here felt it was far more likely that they would see a UFO than that they would draw Social Security... It's very important you understand this. Once you understand this, you realize this is not an episode from the X Files, and you're not more likely to see a UFO if you do certain specific things.

We have to change the whole job structure of America. We have got to basically reorient our economy toward the future.

There's this whole problem of trafficking, which has gotten worse in the economic downturn, which disproportionately affects young women, but also affects some young men who are sold into bondage, into basically servitude for indebted work that they can often never escape from.