I Want to Make the World a Better Place
On his charity work and societal improvement
In general
"The thrust of my charity work for the last 15 years has had to do with kids [...]. I've always supported a dozen kids through Children's Christian Fund. I give money to an organization that aids in the adoption of kids who are handicapped. But here's the thing that's so funny about any kind of service work: you never bargain for what it is going to do for you." (Rocky Mountain News 1992)"I don't like to publicize a lot of what I might be doing, but I try to do my part, and I just wish that everybody would. You don't have to be a successful rock star in order to help people. It just disappoints me when people who do well don't feel the same obligation to help those who are less fortunate than themselves." (Los Angeles Times 1992)
"There are no bad kids." (Bob Costas Interview 1992)
"It's one thing to worry about the California coastline and try to save Walden Woods and worry about the rain forest and the hole in the ozone. Those things are all important too, but I just like the fact that I'm dealing with human beings." (Rocky Mountain News 1992)
"God likes a quiet giver." (Augusta Chronicle 1999)
"I don't talk about my charity work much, but my wife and I have been involved for 15 years in helping at-risk kids. It just rings out to me, and I find it to be very satisfying." (Las Vegas Sun 2005)
On his charity work with the Aspen Youth Experience
"For these kids, it gives them an opportunity to see that there is life outside the ghetto or off the reservation, that there are possibilities if you apply yourself, that although life is rough, they’re not excluded just because of the situation that they’re in now." (Bob Costas Interview 1992)"I just felt so good after spending a week with those kids. They just took me at face value. The don't know about the Eagles, or Hotel California, or that I was on Miami Vice or Wiseguy. I was just 'Glenn Frey, another counselor' and I was a musician. They never bought any of my records. They just took me at face value as I did with them." (Rocky Mountain News 1992)
"The whole idea is to show kids that the courage and trust that they had to display in order to rappel off a 150-foot cliff can be applied to other challenges. If you can jump off a cliff and go down a gorge and pull yourself up, you can run for class president and bring up your grades." (Rocky Mountain News 1992)
On environmental concerns
"One long-range solution to some of these [environmental] problems is for us to start raising a generation of environmentally-conscious children, and making conservation and environmentalism as big a part of a child's education as math and reading." (Expedition Earth 1991)