Jfk's Quotes & Sayings

Things didn't seem promising initially. I arrived like everyone else did, after swearing that I wasn't a spy or guilty of moral turpitude, and that I hadn't got any snails. In the first, bewildering minutes outside JFK, on a Friday night in the rain, I stared out at veering yellow cabs, airport staff screaming abuse at cowboy operators, sleek limos nosing along the bedlam, the whole teetering on the brink of chaos. I thought, as many people do, This is impossible. I won't be able to manage this. But then, we do manage- we manage to get into the city without being murdered, and wake up the next day still alive, and shortly afterwards we are striding down Broadway in the sun. — Deborah Meyler

Delta's plan to upgrade JFK facilities will improve our customers' travel experience and make it more efficient and enjoyable to travel through one of the world's premier international gateways. Our customers should make no mistake that Delta is committed to New York and that this summer's expansion at JFK is an important step in offering enhanced service to customers in most every direction we serve from New York City. — Jim Whitehurst

JFK had a way of grabbing grandeur from mishap. — David Pietrusza

Buddha rode in the trunk, which had to be roped shut. I thought this was going to be the first in a long line of hassles. But, as it turned out, Tsung Tsai was right: Buddha was a breeze. He flowed through the porters, ticket checkers, and security at JFK, gliding on a benevolent cloud. His strange gray Buddha shadow floated on the x-ray monitor.

'Jesus!' said the x-ray operator to the guard.
'Similar', Tsung Tsai said. — George Crane

JFK's great virtue, and the essential difference between him and George W. Bush, was that he had an instinctive appreciation for the chaotic forces of history. — Michael Dobbs

The JFK assassination itself has been dissected to pieces by obsessed
researchers like me. Suffice to say that a few days of intense study of the
available record will convince any honest person, beyond any reasonable
doubt, that Lee Harvey Oswald was not responsible for the crime. The coverup
was so clear and obvious in nature, and so shabbily constructed, that the
conclusion is inescapable that the conspirators who killed him wanted the
kind of controversy that soon exploded, shortly after the first wave of private
citizens began to look at the data. — Donald Jeffries

While JFK had made the sale on a political level, he had not yet completed it on an emotional one. — David Pietrusza

But at that critical moment, detectives knew there was no way they could get to JFK in time from the hotel in midtown Manhattan. — John Solomon

If not us, who? If not now, when?' JFK — Mike Hartner

What makes journalist so fascinating, and biography so interesting [is] the struggle to answer that single question: 'What's he like? — John F. Kennedy

Any society that could come here could pick up the lights from New York. What should we do about that? Should we darken New York from now until the last human expires? Would we want to turn off all the radars at JFK airport? — Seth Shostak

5 decades since JFK's inaugural address it is time now to ask, what your country can do for you & not what you can do for your country. You, my friend have done enough! — Anno Nomius

The only time I have ever seen my father cry in my whole life was the day he watched JFK's funeral procession on television. — Margaret A. Salinger

Inspiration thing is important, to teach the kids that JFK is not an airport, RFK's not a stadium, Martin Luther King ain't a street — Kinky Friedman

Preoccupation with real evil is the greatest difference between right and left. The right was preoccupied with fighting Communism while the left (not liberals such as JFK, but the left) was preoccupied with fighting anti-Communists. The right today is preoccupied with fighting Islamism; the left is preoccupied with fighting 'Islamophobia — Dennis Prager

Until all the files are released, former officials and CIA personnel will continue to say or imply that Fidel killed JFK, thus perpetuating the fifty-plus-year Cold War with Cuba — Lamar Waldron

I would not call myself a veteran conspiracy theorist. Or an obsessed one. I pretty much peaked on the whole conspiracy theory thing in the '60s, with the grassy knoll, who really killed JFK, and who ordered the hit on Lee Harvey Oswald. — Patti Davis

Don't pray for easy lives. Pray to be stronger men. — JFK

To people who remember JFK's assassination, JFK Jr. will probably always be that boy saluting his father's coffin. — Michael Beschloss

I admired Truman, among many other things, because he integrated the Army. I admired JFK because the very first civil rights legislation was passed at his insistence. JFK showed what you could do, though he was a deeply flawed person, as we all now know. — Jed S. Rakoff

After 25 quarters of so-called recovery under Obama, it has increased a total of only 14.3 percent. Compare this to earlier periods. After the JFK tax cuts of the early 1960s, the economy grew in total by roughly 40 percent. After the Reagan tax cuts of the 1980s, the economy grew by a total of 34 percent. — Lawrence Kudlow

I'm not an expert or a trained ballistician. But it is a subject I've studied intently for 50 years, so I may know a thing or two. In my opinion, the JFK investigation was poorly handled. — Stephen Hunter

Henry

We met on an airplane (economy class) and kissed most of the flight home. Over the Atlantic, we decided to fall in love. When the plane touched down at JFK, he hadn't changed his mind. When he carried me over the threshold of my apartment, no Mrs. Wattlesbrook lurked in the shadows. While he was in the kitchen, I picked Pride and Prejudice out of my (miraculously) sill-living houseplant and tucked it into a harmless spot beside all the other DVDs, spine out and proud.
We're going to order in tonight. — Shannon Hale

The mothers in my neighborhood were screamers and yellers, silent fuming carpet-raking speed cleaners or detached unkempt anticleaners, all-day-luncheon martini drinkers, chain smokers prostrate on the couch with bookcases filled with accounts of JFK and Camelot. — Laurie Lindeen

I knew who Jackie Kennedy was in terms of being the wife of JFK and being a clothes horse, and I knew that she later married Onassis, but I had a very, very vague idea of who he was. — Lydia Leonard

And line of cases. Justice Byron R. "Whizzer" White, a JFK appointee, dissented, calling Doe an act of "raw judicial power," as it took these decisions from the states and enshrined their determination in the Supreme Court's reasoning. — William J. Bennett

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

O God, Thy Sea Is So Great And My Boat Is So Small — John F. Kennedy

JFK is a role I've always dreamt of playing. — Rob Lowe

The sum of a million facts is not the truth. — William Manchester

It's almost as if Kennedy grabbed a decade out of the 21st century," Cernan said, "and spliced it into the 1960s." That helps to explain why, as I wrote in 1993 in the preface of this book, we weren't entirely ready for Apollo, and why we have struggled to absorb its impact ever since it happened. How could the most futuristic thing humans have ever done be so far in the past? — Andrew Chaikin

I was very political when JFK ran. — Bob Newhart

The truth is for those who seek it! — Gayle Nix Jackson

Ted Sorrenson, JFK's presidential speech writer, when asked how it came about that he wrote the "ask not what you can do ... " speech, he would answer 'ask not.' — Peggy Noonan

I fell for MUJI socks at their store in N.Y.C.'s JFK airport, and now I get them in bundles. — Vincent Piazza

So basically
be careful never to be too awesome
or you will be mysteriously executed
just like Martin Luther King
and Gandhi
and Abraham Lincoln
and JFK
and Malcolm X
and Sitting Bull
and Crazy Horse
and... wow
why are we so mean to our best people? — Cory O'Brien

When you look at something that's so extraordinary, like a man who is traveling back in time to prevent JFK's assassination, for me as an actor, you're still trying to seed it in some sort of reality. — Sarah Gadon

All experienced murderers seek cover. By putting the Agency's fingerprints on [Mafia] operations, the mob could anticipate that the CIA would [be forced to] cooperate in the cover-up of crucial information related to JFK's assassination — Lamar Waldron

The Central Intelligence Agency, America's best-known spy shop. In that fearful post-Joe McCarthy era, when assassinated JFK had publicly loved James Bond and secretly been entangled in covert intrigues like assassination plots against Cuba's Fidel Castro outsourced to the Mafia by our spies, the CIA was a myth-shrouded invisible army. In those pre-Internet days before electronic books, Web sites with varied credibility, and search — James Grady

As Manhattan came into view, she experienced what she always felt on approaching the city from JFK; a mixture of excitement and calm, a sense of totality; of perfect, living, vibrant, chaotic peace. — Cathleen Schine

I was 22 when JFK was murdered, and I will never recover from it ... Never. — Hunter S. Thompson

I don't begrudge rich people running for office. God knows that FDR and JFK both came from very wealthy families but I think did more to help impoverished Americans than anybody else. — Julie Roginsky

Both JFK and George W. Bush were the sons of wealthy U.S. ambassadors and thus privileged to meet distinguished figures, to travel, and to see the world and think about its problems if they chose. — Nigel Hamilton

It is a little-known but significant fact that no president has appeared more times in Superman comic books than JFK. He was even entrusted with Superman's secret identity and once pretended to be Clark Kent so as to prevent it from being exposed. When Supergirl debuted as a character, she was formally presented to the Kennedys. (Not surprisingly, the president took an immediate liking to her.) In a special issue dedicated to getting American youth to become physically fit - just like the astronaut 'Colonel Glenn' - Kennedy enlists Superman on a mission to close 'the muscle gap'. — Jonah Goldberg

Daddy," said the toddler, now seething with righteous indignation, "you are a poo-poo head!"
Feigning outrage, JFK lowered his voice. "John," he said, "no one calls the President of the United States a poo-poo head. — Christopher Andersen

I have new bodyguards ever since I got a TV show. I didn't know, but it's a lot like becoming president. They tell you every single secret, like who shot JFK. When you have a TV show, they not only tell you who shot JFK, but they assign you bodyguards. — Scott Aukerman

I can remember when believing in conspiracies wasn't cool. Now, in the
second decade of the twenty-first century, more people are starting to
sense that things may not be as they appear to be. The truth in Lord Acton's
classic axiom that "Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely"
becomes more self-evident every day. Politicians from the only two parties
we have to choose from break promises, are unresponsive to the will of the
people, and opt for war, austerity measures, and state control over and over
again. Gary Allen, author of the book None Dare Call It Conspiracy, defined
things perfectly when he wrote, "It must be remembered that the first job of
any conspiracy, whether it be in politics, crime or within a business office, is
to convince everyone else that no conspiracy exists. — Donald Jeffries

Big D. November '63. He was there that Big Weekend. He caught the Big Moment and took this Big Ride.
He was a sergeant on Vegas PD. He was married. He had a chemistry degree. His father was a big Mormon fat cat. Wayne Senior was jungled up all over the nut Right. He did Klan ops for Mr. Hoover and Dwight Holly. He pushed high-line hate tracts. He rode the far-Right zeitgeist and stayed in the know. He knew about the JFK hit. It was multi-faction: Cuban exiles, rogue CIA, mob. Senior bought Junior a ticket to ride.
Extradition job with one caveat: kill the extraditee. — James Ellroy

A new helicopter service called Gotham Air is now offering users cheap flights from Manhattan to JFK or Newark airports that start at just $99. If there's two words I trust together in the same sentence, it's 'cheap' and 'helicopter.' — Jimmy Fallon

It's hard for me to believe that World Trade Center building 7 came down by itself twenty years from now, people will look at 911 the way we look at the assassination of JFK today. It couldn't possibly have been done the way the government told us. — Andrew Napolitano

I would like to fly in a professional like manners one of the big airliners. I have to made my mind which of the followwing: Boeing 747, 757, 767, 777 and or Airbus A300 (it will depend on the cost and which one is easiest to learn). The level I would like to achieve is to be able to takeoff and land, to handle communication with ATC, to be able to successfully navigate from A to B (JFK to Heathrow for example). In a sense to be able to pilot one of these Big Bird, even if I am not a real professional pilot. — Zacarias Moussaoui

Despite his reputation as one of America's foremost "serious" filmmakers, Oliver Stone's name under the "director" caption does not guarantee a good movie. I learned that lesson while enduring the seemingly-endless tedium of The Doors , and was reminded of it during some of the long, drawn-out portions of JFK . However, nothing that Stone has directed or misdirected prepared me for the grotesque mess that is Natural Born Killers . — James Berardinelli

There's a little rack along the front of the counter bearing religious tracts, free for the taking, donation requested. Several slots on the rack are occupied by the Reverend Wayne's famous bestseller. How America Was Saved from Communism: ELVIS SHOT JFK. — Neal Stephenson

I had seen that look before, on the faces of tourists visiting the Texas Book Depository in Dallas where Lee Harvey Oswald took the shots at JFK. I took that tour and met some conspiracy buffs, all of us standing at the gunman's window and looking down to the spot where the motorcade passed. It's right there below the window, an easy shot at a slow-moving car. No mystery, just a kid and a rifle and a tragedy. They came looking for dark and terrible revelations and instead found out something even more dark and terrible: that their lives were trite and boring. — David Wong

For me, Woody Allen's 'Manhattan' defines New York. Both New York and Manhattan Island should be in black in white! I always hear the soundtrack of Gershwin in my head every time I go over the Queensboro Bridge, or come in from JFK because of it! — Brian Cox

If the political left weren't so joyless, humorless, intrusive, taxing, over-taxing, anarchistic, controlling, rudderless, chaos-prone, pedantic, unrealistic, hypocritical, clueless, politically correct, angry, cruel, sanctimonious, retributive, redistributive, intolerant, and if the political left wasn't hell-bent on expansion of said unpleasantness into all aspects of my family's life the truth is: I would not be in your life. If the democratic party were run by Joe Lieberman and Evan Bayh, if it had the slightest vestige of JFK and Henry "Scoop" Jackson I wouldn't be on the political map. If the American media were run by biased but not evil Tim Russert and David Brinkley types I wouldn't have joined the fight. You would not know who I am. The left made me do it, I swear, I am a reluctant cultural warrior. — Andrew Breitbart

JFK used to say the bishops and the cardinals were all Republicans, but the nuns were Democrats! I sort of believe that too. — Kitty Kelley

The lesson of the Clinton years and of Obama's win of both the nomination and the general election in 2008 is that Democrats need to be as tough as JFK was. — Jon Meacham

Trying to assassinate the president should not be funny. It really shouldn't. It's not like I was cracking up when we read about Lincoln or JFK. But let's face it, they were real presidents. Gerald Ford ranks right up there with Millard Fillmore and Bush the First on the list of unexciting white men who have run this country, made their way into history books, and otherwise been human sleeping pills. If all the presidents had been television shows, Gerald Ford would probably have been a PBS fund drive. So I'd bet the fact that anyone would try to kill Gerald Ford, Gerald Rudolph Ford, was kind of hard to get excited about, even back in the day. — Alison Umminger

The argument that John F. Kennedy was a closet peacenik, ready to give up on what the Vietnamese call the 'American War' upon re-election, received its most farcical treatment in Oliver Stone's 'JFK.' — Rick Perlstein

I'm pretty sure that I was JFK in my past life. — Kesha

Bryce Zabel and I went down the road of revising the Kennedy historical record together on the NBC seriesDark Skies. This time instead of giving new meaning to the established JFK chronology, hes created a brand new one altogether.Surrounded by Enemiesis an exhilarating ride, full of twists and turns that never were, but surely could have been. — Melissa Rosenberg

JFK apparently felt genuine sympathy for his 1960 presidential opponent Richard Nixon. He felt that, with Nixon's frequent shifts in political philosophy and reinventions, he must have to decide which Nixon he will be at each stop. This, Kennedy reasoned, must be exhausting. — David Pietrusza

I don't think I'd have been as good as Bruce was. He was a better JFK than I would have been. — Kevin Costner

The record is replete with witnesses reporting that they were intimidated
by various authorities. Could all of them, unconnected and unknown to
each other, be having the same fantasies? And if the threats were real, the
obvious question is: why would any law enforcement officer at any level,
or any anonymous phone caller, for that matter, threaten someone if the
assassination was the result of a random act by a lone nut that was no longer
alive? But this is akin to asking why any information about the murder
of John F. Kennedy was ever withheld, let alone still withheld after fifty
years, on the grounds of "national security" if Lee Harvey Oswald was a
minimum-wage loser, with no conspirators, who was out to impress his
estranged wife. — Donald Jeffries

On November 26, 1963, President Johnson had signed National Security
Action Memorandum, 273, which was in diametrical opposition to JFK's
NSAM 263. While Kennedy's body was still warm in his grave when LBJ's
signature changed future US direction in Vietnam, NSAM 273 had, incredibly
enough, actually been drafted on November 21, 1963, while Kennedy was
still alive. The memo was written by National Security Advisor McGeorge
Bundy (more on him later). Why would such a memo have been created,
when it contradicted JFK's policy and certainly would not have been signed
by him? LBJ let it be known early on that he wanted to "win" in Vietnam,
and had no intention of following Kennedy's plans to withdraw completely
by 1965. — Donald Jeffries

The death of JFK to the resignation of Richard Nixon marked a great turning point in American life. — Pierre Salinger

If you have someone you think is the one, take them and travel around the world. Buy a plane ticket for the two of you to travel all over the world, to places that are hard to reach and hard to get out of. And when you land at JFK and you're still in love with that person, get married. — Bill Murray

In front of an audience of Protestant clergy, the Catholic JFK was drawing strength from his vulnerability. — David Pietrusza

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

To go from playing Jack Startz in 'Behind the Candelabra' to playing JFK in the same year, I have now operated at the far ends of my range as an actor. — Rob Lowe

Gandhi and Mandela and Churchill and JFK and Reagan and Thatcher and Sarkozy and Franklin and Washington set the tone to an incredible degree-their "personal style" was their "brand." ("It" starts with personal style of the tip-top leadership team. Sorry to be politically insensitive, but who would give a hoot about Tibet if it weren't for the look and style of the Dalai Lama?) Boss at any level: You're either on the "it" boat-or not. — Tom Peters

Usually I am not a conspiracy theorist. I don't believe in the Bilderbergers as a conspiracy or the Trilateralists. But I am certain that the Communists killed JFK. There is a super great book called 'Legend' by Edward Jay Epstein that makes it all perfectly clear. — Ben Stein

We may not find the answers. We may not find Bigfoot. We may not find a chupacabra. We may not find out who was responsible for killing JFK, but we're going to keep looking, asking, probing. And one day - you know what? - we may get some of those answers. — George Noory

The truth is for those that seek it! — Gayle Nix Jackson

I'm not promising to write 'JFK 2' - but one day, I might! — Nigel Hamilton

Since the emergence of the Republican Party, only two Democratic presidents, Franklin Roosevelt and John Kennedy, have been followed by Democrats, and both FDR and JFK died in office, so their successors ran as incumbents. — George Will

When we started the show, 'Dallas' was known as the city where JFK was assassinated. By the end it was known as JR's home town. — Larry Hagman

Who am I??
I doubt that Hitler Suicided, you here me right!
I doubt that JFK was killed without a reason it's not a coincidence. I don't believe in coincidences, there is a reason I'm sure.
I doubt about my father suicided! — Deyth Banger

The performance group The Ant Farm redoing JFK's assassination in Dallas was an event that struck a chord with me, especially when one of the members said they'd only intended to do it once, but the Dallas audience insisted they repeat the performance. — Laura Mullen

He had spent the last five years, he [JFK] said ruefully, running for office, and he did not know any real public officials, people to run a government, serious men. The only ones he knew, he admitted, were politicians, and if this seemed a denigration of his own kind, it was not altogether displeasing to the older man. Politicians did need men to serve, to run the government. The implication was obvious. Politicians could run Pennsylvania and Ohio, and if they could not run Chicago they could at least deliver it. But politicians run the world? What did they know about the Germans, the French, the Chinese? He needed experts for that — David Halberstam

When young people see movies like 'Gandhi 'or 'JFK,' there is an element of romanticization of these powerful people, and young people often feel a huge distance between their own lives and the lives of these social-change heroes. But the Panthers were flawed-up people from the streets, so it's easier to identify with them. — Mario Van Peebles

JFK was leading the world, leading the United States into a new position with the Soviet Union. He was calling for the end of the Cold War. He would have been reelected in 1964 because he was vastly popular. — Oliver Stone

Art is the great democrat, calling forth creative genius from every sector of society, disregarding race or religion or wealth or color — John F. Kennedy

The true mystery of the JFK assassination isn't 'How could the bullet go through two people with only slight damage?' but 'Why did the third bullet explode?' — Stephen Hunter

In publishing 'JFK: Reckless Youth' almost twenty years ago, I had gotten into trouble myself with the Kennedys. Not because of my portrait of JFK - which was highly laudatory - but because I had described his parents, Joseph P. Kennedy and Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy, in less-than-flattering terms. — Nigel Hamilton

As we know, Clay Shaw was acquitted, and the establishment celebrated
another victory over the truth. In my view, Ferrie, Banister, Shaw, and Jack
Ruby would have been the conspirators Oswald worked with personally, on
the ground level, while far more powerful forces manipulated everything
behind the scenes. I share Jim Garrison's theory that Oswald was some kind
of intelligence operative who was assigned to infiltrate what he was told was
a plot to kill the president, shortly before the actual assassination. At least
that's where I think the evidence logically leads. — Donald Jeffries

Thousands of snapshots are taken of JFK that day. Many of them remain hanging in the pubs and homes of Galway. — Bill O'Reilly

Manners matter as this author memorably illustrates. Eleanor Roosevelt stubbornly kept her clout behind Adlai Stevenson was an almost visceral resistance to John F. Kennedy's charms as a newcomer to power. The sudden death of Eleanor's granddaughter shortly before JFK was to meet with her suggested that rapprochement was impossible. Kennedy's genuine gentle manners toward the grieving former first lady won her over and may have shifted the balance in an extremely close election. — David Pietrusza

I wish I could know everything ever, like that would be my wish - that's what I hope heaven is, that they tell you who shot JFK and all that stuff. — Louis C.K.

For him (JFK) as he imagined of the British aristocracy, policies were less important than character traits such as dignity, courage, and honor. They did not pose as angry young men, but brought an almost lighthearted approach to politics. The very idea of politics invigorating society rather than dominating society very much appealed to Kennedy. — Scott Farris

HorizonTrip offers New York to Mumbai flights.Find air ticket deals and book your Cheap flights to Mumbai(BOM) from New York(JFK). — Helena

Nearly all Americans felt they knew JFK intimately, his charm and wit regularly lighting up the television screen at home. This is why polls showed that millions of Americans took his assassination like a 'death in the family.' — Vincent Bugliosi

After he was assassinated, his family and the men who had served him continued the lying and began the destruction, censoring and hiding of JFK's medical records. — Richard Reeves

If you cloned JFK and Abraham Lincoln and made them president it wouldn't matter. Our system is just too corrupt and too broken. I think that science is corrupt and broken. I think health and nutrition. I think the economic systems, the international relations, the environment, everything, the engines of everything are broken. — Rainn Wilson

Fifty years and people are still talking about who did it. — Elizabeth Horton-Newton

I can make a movie about Lee Harvey Oswald and make you feel what he feels and make you understand why he believes what he believes. That doesn't mean I think you should go out and shoot JFK. — Steven Soderbergh

Arthur Schlesinger admits that JFK "succumbed to the fake omniscience of insiders". Prolonged immersion in the self-contained, self-justifying world of clandestinity and deception erodes the reality principle. — Garry Wills

A customs man at JFK had asked them to open the suitcases (in case they were smuggling in Indian fruits or sweets, perhaps). 'Ulysses!' the large bespectacled disbelieving customs man had said. 'Are you a student?' Ananda had nodded, though he was in the equivalent of high school. 'I wouldn't read Ulysses unless I was a student!' said the customs man, shutting the suitcase after his glimpse into the tantalising freemasonry of studenthood. A potentially incendiary book then - on the verge of being, but not quite, contraband. And near-unreadable. Ananda — Amit Chaudhuri

JFK to RFK: To survive in politics, you sometimes have to be willing to make fun of yourself. — Robert Dallek