Promise Me, Dad Quotes

“So I try to be mindful, at all times, of what a difference a small human gesture can make to people in need. What does it really cost to take a moment to look someone in the eye, to give him a hug, to let her know, I get it. You’re not alone?”
― Joe Biden, Promise Me, Dad: A Year of Hope, Hardship, and Purpose

“Rules for Happiness: something to do, someone to love, something to hope for. —Immanuel Kant”
― Joe Biden, Promise Me, Dad: A Year of Hope, Hardship, and Purpose

“The time will come when [his] memory will bring a smile to your lips before it brings a tear to your eyes.”
― Joe Biden, Promise Me, Dad: A Year of Hope, Hardship, and Purpose

“if the problem is fear, the answer is knowledge.”
― Joe Biden, Promise Me, Dad: A Year of Hope, Hardship, and Purpose

“True bravery is when there is very little chance of winning, but you keep fighting.”
― Joe Biden, Promise Me, Dad: A Year of Hope, Hardship, and Purpose

“Funerals are for the living, I have always believed, and the job of the eulogist is to acknowledge the enormity of the loss they have just suffered and to help them appreciate that the legacy and accomplishments of their loved one have not died with them.”
― Joe Biden, Promise Me, Dad: A Year of Hope, Hardship, and Purpose

“Never tell a man what his interests are. Be straight and open with him about your own interests. And try to put yourself in his shoes. Try to understand his hopes and his limitations, and never insist that he do something you know he cannot.”
― Joe Biden, Promise Me, Dad: A Year of Hope, Hardship, and Purpose

“Right now, you know, everyone one is going to be there for you." I explained. "Everyone will surround you with love and you'll be busy and have things to keep your mind off the worst. And then in six weeks, or may be twelve weeks, everybody else's life is going to start to get back to normal. But your life isn't going to be normal again. As a matter of fact, as you probably understand already, it's going to get harder for you. And after a while you're going to start feeling guilty because you're going to be going to the same people constantly for help, or just to talk. And as their lives get back to normal, you going to start to worry about leaning on them too much. There might come a time when you think, I'm asking too much. I've got to stop complaining. So when you're down and you feel guilty for burdening your family and friends," I said, "pick up the phone and call me.”
― Joe Biden, Promise Me, Dad - A Year of Hope, Hardship, and Purpose

“We Irish are the only people in the world who are actually nostalgic about the future.”
― Joe Biden, Promise Me, Dad: A Year of Hope, Hardship, and Purpose

“And if the problem is fear, the answer is knowledge. Each side has to be willing to try to understand the concerns of the other.”
― Joe Biden, Promise Me, Dad: A Year of Hope, Hardship, and Purpose

“So how do I want to spend the rest of my life? I want to spend as much time as I can with my family, and I want to help change the country and the world for the better. That duty does much more than give me purpose; it gives me something to hope for. It makes me nostalgic for the future.”
― Joe Biden, Promise Me, Dad: A Year of Hope, Hardship, and Purpose

“History says, don’t hope On this side of the grave. But then, once in a lifetime The longed-for tidal wave Of justice can rise up, And hope and history rhyme.”
― Joe Biden, Promise Me, Dad: A Year of Hope, Hardship, and Purpose

“This can happen again. This is happening in other parts of the world now. And you have to speak out. You can’t remain silent. Silence is complicity.”
― Joe Biden, Promise Me, Dad: A Year of Hope, Hardship, and Purpose

“One of my colleagues in the Senate, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, once made this simple but profound observation about us Irish: “To fail to understand that life is going to knock you down is to fail to understand the Irishness of life.”
― Joe Biden, Promise Me, Dad: A Year of Hope, Hardship, and Purpose

“He told Beau to go home and live like he had a future. ‘Run for governor. Have a purpose.’ Almost every day after that, I found myself acting on that advice - have a purpose. No matter what came at me, I held fast to my own sense of purpose.”
― Joe Biden, Promise Me, Dad: A Year of Hope, Hardship, and Purpose

“When one of your loved ones goes out of your life, you think what he might have done with a few more years,” Joe Sr. had written to his friend. “And you wonder what you are going to do with the rest of yours. Then one day, because there is a world”
― Joe Biden, Promise Me, Dad: A Year of Hope, Hardship, and Purpose

“I believe we have to end the divisive partisan politics that is ripping this country apart, and I think we can. It’s mean-spirited. It’s petty. And it’s gone on for much too long. I don’t believe, like some do, that it’s naïve to talk to Republicans. I don’t think we should look at Republicans as our enemies. They are our opposition, not our enemies. And for the sake of the country, we have to work together.… Four more years of this kind of pitched battle may be more than this country can take.”
― Joe Biden, Promise Me, Dad: A Year of Hope, Hardship, and Purpose

“First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Socialist. Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Trade Unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.”
― Joe Biden, Promise Me, Dad: A Year of Hope, Hardship, and Purpose

“Humans were capable of incredible cruelty, our father wanted me, my sister, and my brothers to understand. And just as dangerous, he made us see, human beings were also capable of looking the other way and remaining silent when awful things were happening all around them.”
― Joe Biden, Promise Me, Dad: A Year of Hope, Hardship, and Purpose

“Rules for Happiness: something to do, someone to love, something to hope for.”
― Joe Biden, Promise Me, Dad: A Year of Hope, Hardship, and Purpose

“Dad. Look at me. Look at me, Dad. Remember, Dad. Home base, Dad. Home base.” What he was saying was: Remember who you are. Remember what matters. Stay true to your ideals. Be courageous.”
― Joe Biden, Promise Me, Dad: A Year of Hope, Hardship, and Purpose

“Never tell a man what his interests are. Be straight and open with him about your own interests. And try to put yourself in his shoes. Try to understand his hopes and his limitations, and never insist that he do something you know he cannot. It’s really just about making the effort to make a personal connection.”
― Joe Biden, Promise Me, Dad: A Year of Hope, Hardship, and Purpose

“We should not let this disease take over our entire existence. He told Beau to go home and live like he had a future: “Run for governor. Have a purpose.”
― Joe Biden, Promise Me, Dad: A Year of Hope, Hardship, and Purpose

“This is happening in other parts of the world now. And you have to speak out. You can’t remain silent. Silence is complicity.”
― Joe Biden, Promise Me, Dad: A Year of Hope, Hardship, and Purpose

“then headed off separately to face their days—as I supposed thousands of husbands and wives all over the city did every morning. I just turned and looked at my dad for an explanation. “Joey, it’s simple,” my dad told me. “They love each other.”
― Joe Biden, Promise Me, Dad: A Year of Hope, Hardship, and Purpose

“The only way I survived, the only way I got through it, was by staying busy and keeping my mind, when it can be, focused on my job.”
― Joe Biden, Promise Me, Dad: A Year of Hope, Hardship, and Purpose

“Ya know, Joey,’ Uncle Ed would say, ‘there’s no accountin’ for horses’ asses.”
― Joe Biden, Promise Me, Dad: A Year of Hope, Hardship, and Purpose

“somewhere along the way I had begun to look up to my own sons.”
― Joe Biden, Promise Me, Dad: A Year of Hope, Hardship, and Purpose

“The voting public was tired of careful and carefully packaged candidates. My reputation as a “gaffe machine” was no longer looking like a weakness. The public could see that”
― Joe Biden, Promise Me, Dad: A Year of Hope, Hardship, and Purpose

“I was a newly elected thirty-year-old United States senator, excited to be down in Washington interviewing staff, when I got the call that my wife and eighteen-month-old daughter had died in a car accident while out shopping the week before Christmas. Beau and Hunt had been in the car, too.”
― Joe Biden, Promise Me, Dad: A Year of Hope, Hardship, and Purpose