Susan, Linda, Nina & Cokie Quotes

“Kaptur, Marcy. Women of Congress: A Twentieth Century Odyssey. Washington, DC: Congressional Quarterly Press, 1996.”
― Lisa Napoli, Susan, Linda, Nina & Cokie: The Extraordinary Story of the Founding Mothers of NPR

“Joan Kroc, I found myself learning more than I ever imagined about this incredible, inventive, and underrecognized philanthropist, one of the greatest of a generation. Mrs. Kroc was seen as the savior of public radio for her landmark posthumous gift to NPR. Selling a book on her incredible life proved impossible until we learned that a Hollywood depiction of her husband was under way; after recasting the book with his name in the title, we found a publisher.”
― Lisa Napoli, Susan, Linda, Nina & Cokie: The Extraordinary Story of the Founding Mothers of NPR

“Friendship was more important than anything.”
― Lisa Napoli, Susan, Linda, Nina & Cokie: The Extraordinary Story of the Founding Mothers of NPR

“I would choose five minutes with a performance artist over four hours with Paul Ryan any day,” she said. Art in all forms would save us, she believed. Arts councils and other civic groups were happy to pay her speaker’s fee to have her grace their stage and say so at their events”
― Lisa Napoli, Susan, Linda, Nina & Cokie: The Extraordinary Story of the Founding Mothers of NPR

“Albert Camus quote that read, “I would like to be able to love justice and still love my country,”
― Lisa Napoli, Susan, Linda, Nina & Cokie: The Extraordinary Story of the Founding Mothers of NPR

“As for the larger historic import of the Panama Canal broadcast, would hearing the voices of their elected officials inspire respect among the American populace? Sen. Alan Cranston allowed, “That of course will depend on how well we handle the treaties and how individual senators comport themselves in the course of the debate.”
― Lisa Napoli, Susan, Linda, Nina & Cokie: The Extraordinary Story of the Founding Mothers of NPR

“Racism and hate will not disappear with more high-rise apartments or larger police forces, but through meaningful conversation.”
― Lisa Napoli, Susan, Linda, Nina & Cokie: The Extraordinary Story of the Founding Mothers of NPR

“Intellectuals had come to believe, over the last two decades, that commercial media had not only not lived up to its potential, but, indeed, had run amok and was destroying the essence of society.”
― Lisa Napoli, Susan, Linda, Nina & Cokie: The Extraordinary Story of the Founding Mothers of NPR

“President Johnson launched his movement for a “great society,” in which he declared there would be “abundance and liberty for all.” His “war on poverty” involved sweeping social programs intended to feed and educate every child, beautification projects to improve the nation’s roads and neighborhoods, health care for the poor and elderly, as well as a boost to the arts—including a government-financed alternative to commercial television designed to spark a cultural revolution. “We should insist that the public interest,” he said, “be served by the public airwaves.”*”
― Lisa Napoli, Susan, Linda, Nina & Cokie: The Extraordinary Story of the Founding Mothers of NPR

“In 1959, Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev insisted that female reporters be allowed to attend his speech as equals. A onetime exception had therefore been granted.”
― Lisa Napoli, Susan, Linda, Nina & Cokie: The Extraordinary Story of the Founding Mothers of NPR

“She’d noticed for years now that while women went ahead and juggled the tasks before them, men felt the need to announce what they were doing, as if they deserved a prize for handling the matter.”
― Lisa Napoli, Susan, Linda, Nina & Cokie: The Extraordinary Story of the Founding Mothers of NPR

“or the company already “had its woman.” (On occasion, the rejection was delivered by a man who put his hand on her thigh.)”
― Lisa Napoli, Susan, Linda, Nina & Cokie: The Extraordinary Story of the Founding Mothers of NPR

“This is not a bedroom war, this is a political movement,” roared Betty Friedan, author of what many saw as the guiding text of the movement, The Feminine Mystique, and cofounder of the National Organization for Women, or NOW, which had organized the protests. “Man is not the enemy. Man is a fellow-victim.”
― Lisa Napoli, Susan, Linda, Nina & Cokie: The Extraordinary Story of the Founding Mothers of NPR

“Rep. Edith Green of Oregon rose to say that while she, too, was tired of discrimination against women, she was most concerned now about the plight of Black Americans. “For every discrimination I have suffered,” she said, “I firmly believe the Negro woman has suffered ten times that amount of discrimination. . . . I suppose this may go down in history as ‘women’s afternoon,’ but the women of the House, I feel sure, recognize that you men will be the ones who finally make the decision.” Still, she said, discrimination against Black Americans was far worse than it was toward women.”
― Lisa Napoli, Susan, Linda, Nina & Cokie: The Extraordinary Story of the Founding Mothers of NPR

“He knew that, for his fellow segregationist lawmakers, the only thing worse than granting equal rights to Black Americans was granting equal rights to women. Surely, he reasoned behind the scenes, his inclusion of “and sex” in the bill would tank its prospects.”
― Lisa Napoli, Susan, Linda, Nina & Cokie: The Extraordinary Story of the Founding Mothers of NPR

“If you interrupt too much and are too aggressive and ready to get in there, you come across as a bitchy, shrill witch,” Cokie said. “And if you don’t talk enough and are polite and wait, then you come across as a wallflower with nothing to say.”
― Lisa Napoli, Susan, Linda, Nina & Cokie: The Extraordinary Story of the Founding Mothers of NPR

“Lindy attended Newcomb, sister school to the elite private university Tulane, “the Harvard of the South.”
― Lisa Napoli, Susan, Linda, Nina & Cokie: The Extraordinary Story of the Founding Mothers of NPR

“Devoted listeners proclaimed their allegiance to public radio as they would a religion.”
― Lisa Napoli, Susan, Linda, Nina & Cokie: The Extraordinary Story of the Founding Mothers of NPR

“On the Thursday before the big Saturday, the happy couple trekked to the Maryland county seat of Rockland, only to learn that a forty-eight-hour waiting period was required before they could obtain a marriage license—and the office was not open on the weekend.”
― Lisa Napoli, Susan, Linda, Nina & Cokie: The Extraordinary Story of the Founding Mothers of NPR

“And, in 1971, when she had questions about Reed v. Reed, the first Supreme Court case to declare sex discrimination a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment, Nina flipped to the front of the brief and sleuthed out its author, a professor of law at Rutgers University named Ruth Bader Ginsburg. The professor was happy to give this young reporter an hour-long lecture about why the amendment, which Nina believed covered only Black citizens, also covered women.”
― Lisa Napoli, Susan, Linda, Nina & Cokie: The Extraordinary Story of the Founding Mothers of NPR

“Intellectuals had come to believe, over the last two decades, that commercial media had not only not lived up to its potential, but, indeed, had run amok and was destroying the essence of society. Television, enthroned as the centerpiece of 90 percent of all homes and switched on for more hours each day than most children spent in school, now exercised a powerful, almost frightening, control over the American psyche.”
― Lisa Napoli, Susan, Linda, Nina & Cokie: The Extraordinary Story of the Founding Mothers of NPR

“I didn’t come here for rumba lessons”
― Lisa Napoli, Susan, Linda, Nina & Cokie: The Extraordinary Story of the Founding Mothers of NPR

“The Making of the President: 1968 and Hunter S. Thompson’s Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail ’72. (Had”
― Lisa Napoli, Susan, Linda, Nina & Cokie: The Extraordinary Story of the Founding Mothers of NPR