Robert Kennedy left an indelible impression on everyone he
met, especially to family and friends.
"There will be no more football with Daddy,
no more swimming with him, no more riding and no more camping with him. But he was the
best father there ever was and I would rather have him for a father for the length of time
I did than any other father for a million years"
David Kennedy, 13, in a Christmas letter to his mom
"The whole family revolved around him. He was the one who taught us what it meant to
be a Kennedy. He organized all the games and trips. Everything flowed from him"
Christopher Lawford
"My father would certainly welcome our economic vitality and the good it has brought
to the lives of Americans. But at the same time, I can hear his voice warning us that the
TRUE measure of a person, and of a nation, is found in something more profound that
economic well-being...he would be impatient for us to turn our minds and our hearts to the
deeper needs of our country (...) 95 percent of high school students who fulfilled
Maryland´s community service requirement--the first of its kind in the nation--said they
believed they would get involved in volunteerism, after graduation. It gives me great
personal satisfaction, as a public official and as Robert F Kennedy´s daughter, to have
worked on an initiative that builds upon his vision" "Love, devotion, courage
-these are clearly what I think of when I think about my father "Think about the
great meaning that those 3 words have: Love, devotion and courage. His love was not
selfish but to share with those he loved and those who loved him. After reading these 3
words I remember what Ted Kennedy said about his older brother: "...to be remembered
as a good and decent man who saw wrong and tried to right it, saw suffering and tried to
heal it, saw war and tried to stop it"
Kathleen Kennedy
"...I believe that my father was a master at living a full and a complete and a good
life"
Maxwell Kennedy
"We still hear his voice appealing to the best qualities of the American spirit....30
years ago today, I, like so many others around the world,felt pain, despair, a sense of
deeply personal loss- and a sense of loss for my country that our troubled land had denied
a leader who could bind us together, change course and move us forward" I would like
to add that as he could bind the United States together he could bind the family together,
the extended family together and that´s why he was so special not only for his kids, but
for the rest of the 3rd generation and for the whole society"
President Clinton
"...he [RFK] has a very strong intellectual side of his personality and a moral
side..."
these were his thoughts about loosing his father: "To a young man or a young woman
who´s just lost a parent, that all you´re really thinking about, the fact that the
person who was most important force in your life is gone and trying to cope with that can
be a very, very difficult thing"
He eulogized his brother Michael and said:
"I remember after my father died, the desolation I felt, the endless ache of missing
him. I discussed it one night with my sister Kathleen, who said
"When times got really tough, or I´m unsure what to do, I still talk to Daddy -and
he´s there"
"...Michael Kennedy fulfilled the greatest wish of all his sisters and
brothers-despite any shortcoming or human frailty, to live up to the words of our father:
"Each time a man stands up for an ideal or acts to improve the lot of others, or
strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each
other from a million different centers of energy and daring, those ripples build a current
which can sweep down the mightiest wall of oppression and resistance"
Joe Kennedy II
My brother Bob doesn't want to be in government -- he promised Dad he'd go straight.
-John Fitzgerald Kennedy
