An Unfinished Love Story Quotes

“We had lived surrounded by books all our married lives. They were our element. We had written them, read for pleasure, amassed mini libraries for particular projects, collected them, organized them into ever shifting categories, and in the end, dwelled inside what we joyfully called our house of books.”
― Doris Kearns Goodwin, An Unfinished Love Story: A Personal History of the 1960s

“This is the most extraordinary collection of talent, of human knowledge, that has ever been gathered together at the White House, with the possible exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone.”
― Doris Kearns Goodwin, An Unfinished Love Story: A Personal History of the 1960s

“Few will have the greatness to bend history, but each of us can work to change a small portion of events, and in the total of all these acts will be written the history of this generation. Thousands of Peace Corps volunteers are making a difference in the isolated villages and city slums of dozens of countries. Thousands of unknown men and women in Europe resisted the occupation of the Nazis and many died, but all added to the ultimate strength and freedom of their countries. It is from numberless diverse acts of courage such as these that human history is thus shaped.
(Page 281)”
― Doris Kearns Goodwin, An Unfinished Love Story: A Personal History of the 1960s

“At times, history and fate meet at a single time in a single place to shape a turning point in man’s unending search for freedom. So it was at Lexington and Concord. So it was a century ago at Appomattox. So it was last week in Selma, Alabama.”
― Doris Kearns Goodwin, An Unfinished Love Story: A Personal History of the 1960s

“The government of the United States is not a private club or college fraternity. Its policies are not private oaths or company secrets. Presumably a man enters public life to serve the nation. The oath taken by every high officer of the nation, elected or appointed, is to support and defend the Constitution of the United States, not an Administration, a political party or a man. “Dissenters are sometimes accused of demeaning the presidency. That office should demand respect. Its dignity, however, flows not from private right or title or the man who occupies it, but solely from the fact that its occupant is chosen by the people of the United States. It is their office, and if they, or any among them, feel that it is wrongly used, then it is their obligation to speak.”
― Doris Kearns Goodwin, An Unfinished Love Story: A Personal History of the 1960s

“Aeschylus. He wrote: In our sleep, pain which cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart until, in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom, through the awful grace of God.”
― Doris Kearns Goodwin, An Unfinished Love Story: A Personal History of the 1960s

“Dick always found a bedrock wisdom in the warning of Eugene O’Neill’s Mary Tyrone in Long Day’s Journey into Night: “The past is the present, isn’t it? It’s the future, too. We all try to lie out of that, but life won’t let us.”
― Doris Kearns Goodwin, An Unfinished Love Story: A Personal History of the 1960s

“We’re going to get a law,” he pledged, “that says every boy and girl in this country, no matter how poor, or the color of their skin, or the region they come from, is going to be able to get all the education they can take.”
― Doris Kearns Goodwin, An Unfinished Love Story: A Personal History of the 1960s

“All of a sudden, he said, ‘You know, there’s something to your game. Republicans are always calling for a return to normalcy, contentment, the status quo. And we’re always pushing forward with our square deals and new deals and fair Americas.”
― Doris Kearns Goodwin, An Unfinished Love Story: A Personal History of the 1960s

“Sixty years after the memories of the changes and upheavals of the Sixties have begun to fade, been half-forgotten or become misunderstood, my project with Dick might add our voices … to the task of restoring a “living history” of that decade, allowing us to see what opportunities were seized, what mistakes were made, what chances were lost, and what light might be cast on our own fractured time. Too often, memories of assassination, violence, and social turmoil have obscured the greatest illumination of the Sixties, the spark of communal idealism and belief that kindled social justice and love for a more inclusive vision of America.
(Pages 404-405)”
― Doris Kearns Goodwin, An Unfinished Love Story: A Personal History of the 1960s

“One thing that a look backward over the vicissitudes of our country’s story suggests is that massive and sweeping change will come. And it can come swiftly. Whether or not it is healing and inclusive change depends on us. As ever, such change will generally percolate from the ground up, as in the days of the American Revolution, the antislavery movement, the progressive movement, the Civil Rights Movement, the women’s movement, the gay rights movement, the environmental movement. From the long view of my life, I see how history turns and veers. The end of our country has loomed many times before. America is not as fragile as it seems.
(Page 9)”
― Doris Kearns Goodwin, An Unfinished Love Story: A Personal History of the 1960s

“Dissenters are sometimes accused of demeaning the presidency. That office should demand respect. Its dignity, however, flows not from private right or title or the man who occupies it, but solely from the fact that its occupant is chosen by the people of the United States. It is their office, and if they, or any among them, feel that it is wrongly used, then it is their obligation to speak.”
― Doris Kearns Goodwin, An Unfinished Love Story: A Personal History of the 1960s

“impression Kennedy made on the two of us was shared in all parts of the country by millions of people. It was this realization that struck me most forcibly during my recent rewatch of the convention: the power of television to ignite a personality in a single moment, transforming a young senator into a national figure, conveying an impression of vitality, excitement, and promise that would linger and grow in the years ahead.”
― Doris Kearns Goodwin, An Unfinished Love Story: A Personal History of the 1960s

“For the Texas delegation, anyone was preferable to the outspoken liberal Kefauver.”
― Doris Kearns Goodwin, An Unfinished Love Story: A Personal History of the 1960s

“general feeling pervaded the country that America was bogged down, that we needed a jolt to somehow get us moving again.”
― Doris Kearns Goodwin, An Unfinished Love Story: A Personal History of the 1960s

“women were relegated to using the janitor’s bathroom in the basement.”
― Doris Kearns Goodwin, An Unfinished Love Story: A Personal History of the 1960s

“And the demeaning bag of tricks and tests to which Black applicants were subjected were not simply formidable, but absurd and contemptible. “How many bubbles in a bar of soap?” applicants were asked. “How many seeds in a watermelon?”
― Doris Kearns Goodwin, An Unfinished Love Story: A Personal History of the 1960s

“some form of action marked nearly every paragraph of the speech. LBJ proposed federal aid for education to ensure every child, from preschool to college, achieved the fullest development of his or her skills; a medical care program for the elderly and the underprivileged; a national effort to make the city a better place to live; an environmental program to end the poisoning of rivers and the air we breathe; a national foundation to support the arts; an initiative to eliminate barriers to the right to vote, and major reform of restrictive immigration laws.”
― Doris Kearns Goodwin, An Unfinished Love Story: A Personal History of the 1960s

“Because then we still had a conviction that sweeping change was possible,” Dick replied. “If we could describe the problem, we could do something about it. We felt that the world ahead not only could be but would be different and better than the society in which we lived.”
― Doris Kearns Goodwin, An Unfinished Love Story: A Personal History of the 1960s

“revelation of warm possibility. Organizers had filled the Dodd Gym with seven hundred people. Before Kennedy spoke, six-year-old Ellen Anich crossed the stage, carrying a bouquet of flowers she had brought to present to the candidate’s wife, Jackie Kennedy. That six-year-old girl was now sixty-eight when I tracked her down for a conversation. “A bunch of grayheads sitting around the table thought it would be cute to have a little girl deliver the flowers. My uncle, Tom Anich, was active in Democratic politics,” Ellen explained, “so I was chosen. We had no money. Everything I wore belonged to a rich girl across the street. That day, I practiced handing things over…. But when Kennedy reached down to accept the flowers in his wife’s absence, I held back, confused since they were meant for his wife.” Kennedy explained that his wife was pregnant and resting. “My mom’s going to have a baby, too,” young Ellen announced. “I promise if you give them to me, I will make sure she gets them,” Kennedy assured her—so finally, she surrendered the roses. The crowd roared with good-natured laughter, sending the night in a positive direction. The high spirits continued as Kennedy spoke of a Democratic bill Eisenhower had vetoed, the Area Redevelopment Bill. He pledged that he would work for its passage so that Ashland and other depressed communities throughout the country would receive the aid they deserved from their government. On September 24, 1963, Kennedy returned to Ashland, this time as president of the United States. The harbor had not been cleaned up and the grave economic situation had not improved. As president he had passed and signed the Area Redevelopment Bill, but its modest funds had not filtered down to Ashland.”
― Doris Kearns Goodwin, An Unfinished Love Story: A Personal History of the 1960s

“Our job is to enforce the law, including the Constitution,’ the Justice repeatedly said. ‘We have nothing to do with your abstract notions of justice or liberty. Only with what the law provides. Trample the law for your own ends, Dick, and the time will come when you’ll be trampled under someone else’s ends.”
― Doris Kearns Goodwin, An Unfinished Love Story: A Personal History of the 1960s

“Though nothing can bring back the hour Of splendor in the grass, of glory in the flower We will grieve not, rather find Strength in what remains behind”
― Doris Kearns Goodwin, An Unfinished Love Story: A Personal History of the 1960s

“Some have called upon us to mute or stifle dissent in the name of patriotism and the national interest. It is an argument which monstrously misconceives the nature and process and the greatest strength of American democracy…. It is not our privilege but our duty as patriots, to write, to speak, to organize, to oppose any President and any party and any policy at any time which we believe threatens the grandeur of this nation and the well-being of its people. This is such a time.”
― Doris Kearns Goodwin, An Unfinished Love Story: A Personal History of the 1960s

“When prospective students tour the University of Michigan today, there is a bronze plaque at the entrance of the Michigan Union: “Here at 2:00 a.m. on October 14, 1960, John Fitzgerald Kennedy first defined the Peace Corps. He stood at the place marked by the medallion and was cheered by a large and enthusiastic student audience for the Hope and Promise his idea gave the world.”
― Doris Kearns Goodwin, An Unfinished Love Story: A Personal History of the 1960s

“we had a chance to construct a society more concerned with the quality of our goals than the quantity of our goods.”
― Doris Kearns Goodwin, An Unfinished Love Story: A Personal History of the 1960s

“He was constantly worried that if the justices imposed their own social or political views, the authority of the court itself would be chipped away. His institutional conservatism left a permanent mark on me. “ ‘Our job is to enforce the law, including the Constitution,’ the Justice repeatedly said. ‘We have nothing to do with your abstract notions of justice or liberty. Only with what the law provides. Trample the law for your own ends, Dick, and the time will come when you’ll be trampled under someone else’s ends.’ ”
― Doris Kearns Goodwin, An Unfinished Love Story: A Personal History of the 1960s

“There is a tide in the affairs of men, which, taken at the flood leads on to fortune. Omitted, all the voyage of their life is bound in shallows and in miseries.”
― Doris Kearns Goodwin, An Unfinished Love Story: A Personal History of the 1960s

“to heal the wounds of the nation, and to restore it, as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes, to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquility and union.” Even the smallest of grandchildren listened quietly, mesmerized”
― Doris Kearns Goodwin, An Unfinished Love Story: A Personal History of the 1960s

“The weird thing,” Dick told me after I had read him the passage, “was that the more difficult and challenging the work became, the more fascinating the whole study of law became for me. I started to take real pleasure in the intricacy of law.”
― Doris Kearns Goodwin, An Unfinished Love Story: A Personal History of the 1960s

“lamented how Lyndon had erased his own legacy as well as Dick’s when he canceled that book of the messages and speeches of the Great Society. “You’ve returned the favor with a vengeance!” Dick listened thoughtfully. “I was in the midst of a political battle,” he said, “and as we’ve well established, I had politics in the blood.”
― Doris Kearns Goodwin, An Unfinished Love Story: A Personal History of the 1960s