“But he was also animated by the lesson he had drawn from existentialism: that the way to deal with despair and the heaviness of fate was by acts of individual courage.” (321)
“He was feeling restless and a little reckless. He had been up until 3:30 a.m. working on a Vietnam speech. At breakfast, sensing his mood, Ethel greeted him, “Hail Caesar.” He drove to the senate at eighty miles an hour in his convertible with the top down, even though the temperature was 30 degrees.” (334)
“The children are covered with sores and their tummies stick out because the have no food. Do you know how lucky you are? Do you know how lucky you are? Do something for your country.” (339)
“The most routine tasks had to become self-improvement projects. Senator Kennedy would never take the subway from the New Senate Office Building to the Capitol; he had to walk.” (343)
“Deep in his being, he was still the boy who plunged into Nantucket Sound because he couldn’t swim and because no one in his family seemed to care.” (345)
“The guru and the senator talked past each other, in a gentle sort of way. Kennedy wanted to know about politics: did Ginsberg think the hippies would ally with the blacks? Ginsberg asked if Kennedy had ever tried ‘grass.’ RFK: ‘No, whatever that means.’ Ginsberg chanted his Hare Krishnasfor the ‘preservation of the planet.’ Kennedy said, ‘You ought to sing it to the guy up the street,’ gesturing toward the White House, ‘He needs it more than I do.’” (346)
“In a time of moral uncertainty, Kennedy did not lose sight of the right thing to do. The real question was whether he could summon the courage to do it.” (348)
“I never covered a guy who would say nothing to you. Most politicians can’t stop talking. If Kennedy didn’t want to answer your question, he’d just stare silently at you.” (377)
“Jack Kennedy was more the politician, saying things publicly that he privately scoffed at. Robert Kennedy was more himself. Jack gave the impression of decisive leadership, the man with all the answers. Robert seemed more hesitant, less sure he was right, more tentative, more questioning, and completely honest about it. Leadership he showed; but it had a different quality, an off-trail unorthodox quality, to some extent a quality of searching for answers to hard questions in company with his bewildered honesty, trying to work things out with their help.” (390)
“A small, plain white cross stands by a stone slab inscribed with his name and the years of his birth and death. In contrast to the grandeur of JFK’s grave, the effect is unadorned and a little lonely. One thinks of his struggle to overcome fear and wonders what, if he had lived, he might have done.” (394)
