Bobby Kennedy: Quotes From a Life

“Some men see things as they are and say, ‘Why?’ I dream things that never were and say, ‘Why not?’ ”

--Paraphrase from G. B. Shaw’s play “Back to Methuselah,” this line closed many of RFK’s speeches in the 1968 campaign. (It became a signal to reporters to prepare to leave for the next stop, and writer David Halberstam recalled Kennedy parodying himself, saying, “ . . . as George Bernard Shaw used to say, ‘Run for the bus.’ ”)

Robert F. Kennedy: Would you tell us if you have opposition from anybody that you dispose of them by having them stuffed in a trunk? Is that what you do, Mr. Giancana?

Sam Giancana (reputed organized crime leader): I decline to answer. . . .

RFK: Would you tell us anything about your operations or will you just giggle every time I ask you a question?

Giancana: I decline to answer. . . .

RFK: I thought only little girls giggled, Mr. Giancana.

--Questioning during Kennedy’s tenure as counsel for the Senate Investigations Committee in the late 1950s. (“My biggest problem as counsel is to keep my temper,” he conceded. “To see people sit in front of us and lie and evade makes me boil inside.”)

“Gentlemen, I don’t give a damn if the state and county organizations survive after November, and I don’t give a damn if you survive. I want to elect John F. Kennedy President.”

--To New York Democratic officials in JFK’s 1960 campaign.

“You have a special and particular responsibility now which I know you will fulfill. Remember all the things that Jack started--be kind to others that are less fortunate than we--and love our country.”

--Letter to son Joseph, now a congressman, “on the day of the burial of your godfather, John Fitzgerald Kennedy,” November, 1963.

“So I shall ask you tonight to return home, to say a prayer for the family of Martin Luther King, that’s true, but more important to say a prayer for our own country, which all of us love--a prayer for understanding and that compassion of which I spoke. . . .

“Let us dedicate ourselves to what the Greeks wrote so many years ago: to tame the savageness of man and make gentle the life of this world. Let us dedicate ourselves to that, and say a prayer for our country and for our people.”

--Speech in Indianapolis hours after Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination, April 4, 1968. Afterward, the ghetto crowd quietly dispersed; in following weeks, when riots killed 45 people in other cities, Indianapolis had no major disturbance.

“The youthfulness I speak of is not a time of life but a state of mind, a temper of the will, a quality of the imagination, a predominance of courage over timidity, of the appetite for adventure over love of ease. . . . It does not accept the failures of today as a reason for the cruelties of tomorrow. It believes that one man can make a difference--and that men of good will, working together, can grasp the future and mold it to our will.”

--Speech to college students in Utah, 1968.

“We are a great country, an unselfish country and a compassionate country. I intend to make that my basis for running.”

--Final speech, after primary victory in California, June 5, 1968.