Quotes About Kennedy

#1. Had (President) Kennedy turned to his advisers and wailed, "What can we beat the Russians at?" and if someone had cried "Backgammon!" at that point, Apollo would never have happened.

Andrew Smith

#2. countdown for Apollo 12 in 1969. Marcia Dunn | 381 words Jack King, a NASA public affairs official who became the voice of the Apollo moon shots, died June 11 at a hospice center near the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. He was 84

Anonymous

#3. I'm not comparing myself to Bobby Kennedy by any stretch, but he was opposed by the liberal establishment, too. Eleanor Roosevelt was the biggest opponent to him running.

Harold Ford Jr.

#4. Whatever the long-term legal prospects for same-sex marriage, President Obama's willingness to put the matter front and center in an election year can at least make him a candidate for inclusion in Kennedy's Profiles in Courage.

Robert Dallek

#5. I have worked in every - every Democratic administration since the Kennedy administration, and I know dysfunctionality when I see it.

Richard Holbrooke

#6. Dr. Kennedy talked me out of killing myself
for now
without saying a single words or even knowing what was going on. Which, I've decided, is the mark of a totally kick-ass therapist.

Barry Lyga

#7. John F. Kennedy:] Above all, while defending our own vital interests, nuclear powers must avert those confrontations which bring down an adversary to the choice of either a humiliating retreat or a nuclear war.

Elie Abel

#8. I covered Kennedy when she was three years old and the darling daughter of President Kennedy who doted on her and whose mother did everything to protect her from the prying press.

Helen Thomas

#9. It is very difficult for [people] to accept the idea that someone as inconsequential as Oswald could have killed someone as consequential as Kennedy.

Robert Dallek

#10. Futurism is another American myth: whether Kennedy, Johnson, Reagan or Obama, American presidents all come into office with a new program, and the conviction that the country is going to be better than ever.

James Hillman

#11. I met Jack Kennedy in November, 1946. We were both war heroes, and both of us had just been elected to Congress.

Norman Mailer

#12. Look. Every partisan in every party has to learn one thing: Sometimes your people are wrong. To paraphrase an old retort, saying "My party, right or wrong" is like saying "My Kennedy, drunk or sober." Credibility is earned, and standing up and saying "Fie!" now and then reinforces your truthfulness.

James Lileks

#13. Damn Kennedy. Damn him, damn him. It would serve him right to see me with someone like Lucas. Someone so different, but equally hot. More so, if I started calculating details.

Tammara Webber

#14. When you look at Kennedy and Nixon, TV played a crucial part in Kennedy's popularity. He was incredibly photogenic, while Nixon was this scowling figure. American viewers judged him on his appearance on TV.

Peyton Reed

#15. Asked to explain how he became a war hero he (Kennedy) responded, It was involuntary. They think my boat.

Sally Bedell Smith

#16. Kennedy saw the insurgency as a anti-colonial, essentially nationalist movement, feeding on social discontent. So you don't shoot people.

Roger Hilsman

#17. I think Americans expect optimism in their leadership. The most popular and effective leaders, whether it was Bill Clinton or Ronald Reagan or Jack Kennedy, brought to it a sense of optimism and possibility.

David Brooks

#18. Some presidents, such as Bill Clinton and John F. Kennedy, are political sailors - they tack with the wind, reaching difficult policy objectives through bipartisan maneuvering and pulse-taking.

Douglas Brinkley

#19. It was around 1985 before I heard the news of President Kennedy's assassination.

Peter O'Toole

#20. Must, never, must avoid, must guard: the minatory commands came the eleven times (from the departing Eisenhower). In contrast, Kennedy's rhetoric on January 20 with a cascade of permissions: the word "let" rang out 14 times.

Rick Perlstein

#21. When I was in Congress, I worked with Joe Kennedy to rename the Justice Department for Bobby, and when I retired, Teddy Kennedy sent me this Roy Lichtenstein print of his brother, inscribed: 'Bobby would have been proud of you.'

Joe Scarborough

#22. Presidential campaign observer Teddy White on the second Kennedy-Nixon debate in which the candidates spoke from separate television studios: It was as if, separated by comments from his adversary, Richard Nixon was more at ease and could speak directly to the nation that lay between them.

David Pietrusza

#23. The lesson of the last year is this: foreign policy can't be managed through the politics of personality, and our President would do well to take note of an observation John F. Kennedy made once he was in office - that all of the world's problems aren't his predecessor's fault.

Sarah Palin

#24. Sen. Edward Kennedy knows very directly. Senator Kennedy and I talked on several occasions prior to the war that my view was that the best evidence that I had seen was that Iraq indeed had weapons of mass destruction.

David Kay

#25. For style and for creating a mood of optimism and hope - Kennedy on that count is as effective as any president the country has had in its history.

Robert Dallek

#26. John Kerry was the big winner in Iowa. Ted Kennedy introduced Kerry as the 'comeback kid.' That used to be Bill Clinton's name - because every time he would come back to a city, he would find out if he had a kid or not.

Jay Leno

#27. Bobby Kennedy is so concerned with poverty because he didn't have any as a kid.

Ronald Reagan

#28. Reagan is described as delivering Barry Goldwater's doctrine with John F. Kennedy's technique.

H.W. Brands

#29. The author commented that John F. Kennedy's 1960 presidential campaign team worked like a band of brothers, while Richard Nixon's campaign team worked like a band of brothers in law under the direction of a quarrelsome aunt.

David Pietrusza

#30. I would've loved Jack Kennedy. I would've loved to have campaigned for him and supported him. I wish there were more like him today.

Rob Lowe

#31. The fact that a Republican is in the late Senator Kennedy's old seat probably must have him rolling in his grave, probably spilling his drink.

Ann Coulter

#32. I think there are good men and women in all decades. We've grown cynical. And look at what we do to all our heroes: Churchill, FDR, Kennedy, they all had affairs. But heroic things happen every day.

Kevin Costner

#33. Kennedy said that if we had nuclear war we'd kill 300 million people in the first hour. McNamara, who is a good businessman and likes to save, says it would be only 200 million.

Norman Thomas

#34. I want to be the first. If they'd let me go to the moon, I'd crawl all the way to Cape Kennedy just to do it. I'd like to go to the moon, but I don't want to be the second man to go there.

Evel Knievel

#35. The election of John F Kennedy will lead to the death of a free church and a free state.

W. A. Criswell

#36. When Johnson decided to fight for passage of the law John F. Kennedy had put before Congress in June 1963 banning segregation in places of public accommodation, he believed he was taking considerable political risks.

Robert Dallek

#37. I told them how excited I would be to go into space and how thrilled I was when Alan Shepard made his historic flight, and when John Kennedy announced on the news that the men had landed safely on the moon, and how jealous I was of those men.

Christa McAuliffe

#38. We must uphold the promise of Roosevelt, Truman, Kennedy, Johnson, Carter, and Clinton and never allow the President and his Republican friends to threaten Social Security by putting it on the Wall Street trading block.

John F. Kerry

#39. It's just I hate reading the description 'offbeat' about a character in a script, because I, along with Seth Green, Jamie Kennedy and a few others, have cornered the market on 'offbeat.'

Breckin Meyer

#40. the clearest view is always from the bottom. Kennedy

Gloria Steinem

#41. President Kennedy didn't negotiate out of the Cuban missile crisis simply because he and Khrushchev got along well. Khrushchev didn't have the cards.

Colin Powell

#42. But to make a long story short, I decided that I was going to run, and I announced that I was going to run for president in Florida, I would be the favorite son from Florida, and that would stop Johnson and Kennedy from dividing up the state.

George Smathers

#43. At the time of his death, John Kennedy had a national security establishment that was a writhing ball of snakes.

Charlie Pierce

#44. Our liberal, New York/Washington-based media would never in a million years put Liberal Godfather Ted Kennedy on the spot about his clan's bad behavior, to whose lurid history he himself has contributed so much.

Camille Paglia

#45. Kennedy after all has lots of glamour - Gregory Peck with an atom bomb in his holster.

William F. Buckley Jr.

#46. Whatever my party affiliation, I will continue to be guided by President Kennedy's statement that sometimes party asks too much.

Arlen Specter

#47. If one person in America had starved over the last 20 years, you, reader, would know his name. The media would see to that. It would be the most thoroughly documented death since John Kennedy's.

Joseph Sobran

#48. I guess the worst snow was the Kennedy inauguration in 1960. Heavy snow.

Bob Schieffer

#49. Joe Kennedy isn't in the habit of having incompetents around. I wouldn't have lasted three months if I didn't have some ability.

Sargent Shriver

#50. I can tell you where I was when Kennedy was shot - which was in the common room at school. I heard about it on the old valve radio. At the time of Armstrong's landing, I was at university rehearsing a play.

Sam Neill

#51. I believe the death of Bobby Kennedy was in many ways the death of decency in America. I think it was the death of manners and formality, the death of poetry and the death of a dream.

Emilio Estevez

#52. Jack Kennedy always said to me, Hedy, get involved. That's the secret of life. Try everything. Join everything. Meet everybody.

Hedy Lamarr

#53. With Kennedy, I was anchored. She filled all the lonely spaces inside of me with her laughter, with her wry and witty humor, with everything we had in common.

Lauren Blakely

#54. My real name is Joe Kennedy, but if you live in Massachusetts, you can't sign 'Joe Kennedy.' So, back in 1957, I stuck the X on my name to be different from those people in Hyannis Port.

X.J. Kennedy

#55. I was once invited to attend a private dinner for Senator John F. Kennedy. But it was a Saturday evening, and I passed. Had better things to do.

Jack McDevitt

#56. Splatter the brain matter of my enemies, with the same bullet trajectory that murdered John Kennedy

Canibus

#57. Television has changed how we choose our leaders. It elected Ronald Reagan and a host of Kennedy-look-alike congressmen with blow-dried hair and gleaming teeth. It destroyed Senator Joe McCarthy by showing him in action and it created Jerry Falwell.

Ronald Steel

#58. My weakness is him.

Bowen, Sarina; Kennedy, Elle. Him (Kindle Location 155). Rennie Road Books. Kindle Edition.

Sarina Bowen

#59. I see a direct line between Kennedy and Richard Nixon and the opening to China and the detente with the Soviet Union.

Robert Dallek

#60. The decision to go to the moon is now appreciated and associated with President Kennedy's speech, but somebody else had told him it was a good idea. It turned out to be a good commitment, but it was a unique situation.

Buzz Aldrin

#61. Pledge Allegiance was a pretty generic name back in the day. In the 80's I was the promoter for all the punk rock shows and I'd book Black Flag, Dead Kennedy's, Minor Threat etc and I'd hook them up with places to stay if needed so it's hard to keep track of it all.

Reed Mullin

#62. On Jackie Kennedy's historic tour of India and Pakistan in 1962, she was photographed wearing sleeveless shifts and knee-length skirts - not to mention a midriff-baring sari that caused an international sensation. Public opinion seemed to have grown more conservative in South Asia since then.

Hillary Rodham Clinton

#63. We don't think well of our presidents when they are serving. Even Kennedy, with such a short presidency, was beginning to lose his remarkable appeal to the American people when he was suddenly sainted by death.

Charlton Heston

#64. I had a lot of fun bantering back and forth with Kennedy. But for ease and comfort, it would be Gerald Ford. He was a down-home type. I came from the Midwest and he came from the Midwest. He was nonaggressive and kindly.

Helen Thomas

#65. The key to success? Work hard, stay focused and marry a Kennedy.

Arnold Schwarzenegger

#66. I made four films on John F. Kennedy, filmed when he was running for office, in office, and after his death.

Robert Drew

#67. I look at it like this: that if Shakespeare were alive today, he would have written two or three plays about the Kennedy family, and actors would traditionally play JFK like they Hamlet or King Lear. They just would. I mean, people have played JFK, and they'll play him long after I have.

Rob Lowe

#68. The second [presidential] term changes, and I think that John F. Kennedy certainly ran on that and he knew that second term would give him oxygen, and he needed it. Unfortunately, he didn't get there.

Oliver Stone

#69. President Kennedy was willing to go to war. He was not a coward. The man had been in war and so had Ken O'Donnell. He was ready to protect this nation, but he was not ready for a military solution just because it was being rammed down his throat.

Kevin Costner

#70. Mr. Kennedy had become disenchanted with the Vietnamese President, Ngo Dinh Diem, and Diem distrusted Kennedy.

Jim Bishop

#71. If you're a Kennedy and you go to Italy or you go to Argentina, you're treated as royalty. And in the United States, we're endlessly fascinated by the family.

Douglas Brinkley

#72. The pilot came back and said he had just heard that Kennedy was shot.

George Smathers

#73. I believed in Bobby Kennedy. Campaigning for him was an attempt to give back something to this country that has given me so much.

Sammy Davis Jr.

#74. Just imagine if in his inaugural address John F. Kennedy had said, 'Ask not what your country can, you know, do for you, but what you can, like, do for your country actually,

David McCullough

#75. In two months Joseph Kennedy had taken over my entire life, and I trusted him implicitly to make the most of it.

Gloria Swanson

#76. You have the maturity of a 14-year-old boy!" Kennedy hisses.
"And you have the chest of one.

Emma Chase

#77. The most revered presidents - Jefferson, Jackson, Lincoln, Wilson, both Roosevelts, Truman, Kennedy, Reagan, Clinton, Obama - have each advanced populist imperialism while gradually increasing inclusion of other groups beyond the core of descendants of old settlers into the ruling mythology.

Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz

#78. So, in Kennedy's case, he was a Catholic. And people thought after the Al Smith election and so forth that a Catholic couldn't win in the United States. But when he was able to win in West Virginia, he proved that a Catholic could win, even in a heavily Protestant state.

Geoffrey Cowan

#79. There's a great book about John Kennedy and his relationship to civil rights called 'The Bystander.' The title alone suggests that he did as little as possible, any minimal critical effort, to really facilitate civil rights in the White House.

Michael Eric Dyson

#80. One is reminded that [John Kerry, D-MA] really just a better-looking Ted Kennedy, a richer Michael Dukakis.

Laura Ingraham

#81. John F. Kennedy once said: 'The definition of happiness is the full use of your powers, along the lines of excellence.

Robin S. Sharma

#82. I do not know that there is a more certain sound than Senator Kennedy. I cannot imagine a more uncertain sound than Senator Kerry.

Gordon Smith

#83. I know that Oswald killed Kennedy. Now, was he pushed? Encouraged to do it by outsiders? Possibly. Possibly. Was he sitting down with Fidel Castro? No.

Bill O'Reilly

#84. In college, I won the Irene Ryan; it's kind of like a collegiate Tony, which got my career going. I was honored. I won a fellowship to the Kennedy Center, and that's where I got my agent.

Zachary Knighton

#85. It seems likely MK-Ultra or a Manchurian Candidate, or possibly both, may have been involved in the 1968 assassination of Robert F. Kennedy, the US Presidential candidate most political analysts agree would have been elected President had he lived.

James Morcan

#86. Ted Kennedy devoted his lifetime to protecting those most in need, and tens of millions of Americans have been the beneficiaries.

Bernie Sanders

#87. Bill Clinton told me that when he was 14, he shook John Kennedy's hand, and that inspired him to be president.

John Catsimatidis

#88. I not only play at the prestigious classical concert halls like Carnegie Hall and Kennedy Center, but also hospitals, churches, prisons, and restricted facilities for leprosy patients, just to mention a few.

Ji-Hae Park

#89. When the bus or the plane rolled or flew through the night, they sang songs of their own composition about Mr Nixon and the Republicans in chorus with the Kennedy staff and felt that they, too, were marching like soldiers of the Lord to the New Frontier.

Theodore White

#90. Some Kennedy aides have always insisted that Johnson misread J.F.K.'s plans for Vietnam. They say that Kennedy had begun to rethink the U.S. presence in Indochina and was reluctant to increase it.

Robert Dallek

#91. It's hard to deny that an alarming number of those who stood for peace, not war, were either killed by deranged lone gunmen or else died in suspicious circumstances. We refer of course to the likes of JFK, Martin Luther King, Benazir Bhutto, Bobby Kennedy and John Lennon, to name but a few.

James Morcan

#92. It is the '94 race which in many ways allowed Ted Kennedy to become his own man rather than the 'third brother.' He had to reach down and win it on his own.

Chuck Todd

#93. I'm trying to finish my book on the Kennedy assassination.

Vincent Bugliosi

#94. We all remember Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June in California.

Hillary Clinton

#95. I'm old enough to remember John Kennedy sending a few advisers into Vietnam. I'm very worried we'll get in and we'll get mired down in something we don't have any idea what to do [with].

Jim McDermott

#96. Compared with other recent presidents whose stumbles and failures have assaulted the national self-esteem, memories of Kennedy continue to give the country faith that its better days are ahead. That's been reason enough to discount his limitations and remain enamored of his presidential performance.

Robert Dallek

#97. Every year since 1990, the Gallup poll has asked Americans to assess all the presidents since John F. Kennedy. And every year, Kennedy comes out on top.

Robert Dallek

#98. I was next to Bobby [Kennedy] when he was shot. It was hideous. Part of me wanted to crawl away. I couldn't ... I still wake up in the night and think about it. I even remember the f-stop. It was 1.4.

Harry Benson

#99. The fact is that we would have had comprehensive health care now, had it not been for Ted Kennedy's deliberately blocking the legislation that I proposed in 1978 or '79.

Jimmy Carter

#100. I think she was from Connecticut, but not fancy Connecticut, with the money and the Kennedy cousins and the Lyme disease. I think she was from New Haven, or Bridgeport.

Lev Grossman