Washington's answer to a self-inflicted financial crisis reminded Americans why they so deeply distrust the political class. The 'fiscal cliff' process was secretive and sloppy and the nation's so-called leadership lacked the political courage to address our root problems: joblessness and debt.

My message especially to young people is to have courage to think differently courage to invent to travel the unexplored path courage to discover the impossible and to conquer the problems and succeed. These are great qualities that they must work towards. This is my message to the young people.

You may not always have a comfortable life and you will not always be able to solve all of the world's problems at once but don't ever underestimate the importance you can have because history has shown us that courage can be contagious and hope can take on a life of its own.

Courage means to keep working a relationship to continue seeking solutions to difficult problems and to stay focused during stressful periods.

I love seeing people having fun. Everyone over in L.A. is too cool for it. That's the problem.

But if the choice is a cool president and 8 or 10 percent unemployment in a declining economy and a country that seems to be going in the wrong direction and structural unemployment for young people at 50 percent I'd rather have a dorky president who fixed those problems.

I think Al Gore has done a great service in making global warming cool. He's basically taken it from a nerdy almost ignored issue to making it what it is - namely a problem.

The problem to me is violence. It's not cool to kill somebody or hurt people.

I remember once acting really cool on a bus with this girl named Stephanie. When I got home I realized that I had a really big zit on my forehead. If you have acne problems you really shouldn't be acting like Don Juan.

My problem was that I was blond. There were no heroes with blond hair. Robert Taylor and Henry Fonda they all had dark hair. The only one I found was Van Johnson who wasn't too cool. He was a nice homely American boy. So I created my own image. It worked.