Rose Kennedy

“I know not age, nor weariness nor defeat.”

“Neither comprehension nor learning can take place in an atmosphere of anxiety.”

“In my life, I am often reminded that there is a destiny that rules over us, because no one whom I know about or whom I read about seems to be completely happy during a long time.”

“Birds sing after a storm; why shouldn't people feel as free to delight in whatever sunlight remains to them?”

“There's nothing I like less than bad arguments for a view that I hold dear.”

“In my relations with my husband, there was never any deceit... he never said he was going out on business; he would say he was going to a show, and I would say, 'Fine.'”

“I tell myself that God gave my children many gifts - spirit, beauty, intelligence, the capacity to make friends and to inspire respect. There was only one gift he held back - length of life.”

“What greater aspiration and challenge are there for a mother than the hope of raising a great son or daughter?”

“It is selfish to concern oneself with tragedies.”

“I am not going to be licked by tragedy, as life is a challenge, and we must carry on and work for the living as well as mourn for the dead.”

“I am just an old-fashioned girl.”

“My husband changed jobs so fast that I simply never knew what business he was in.”

“As motherhood is the greatest and most natural God-given gift for women for posterity, it would seem that the birth and rearing of children, in the way which to us seems most ideal, would be the most satisfying and the most rewarding career for a woman.”

“Modern candidates seem to have to live with political matters all the time. In my father's time, a politician's home was still his castle.”

“Sometimes I wonder if there is something about my family which invites violence. 'Is it envy,' you ask? I don't know... I've had so much, a son as president, two as senators, a son-in-law who's an ambassador... perhaps God doesn't permit that much.”

“I've had an exciting time; I married for love and got a little money along with it.”

“More business is lost every year through neglect than through any other cause.”

“Now I am in my eighties, and I have known the joys and sorrows of a full life. Age, however, has its privileges. One is to reminisce, and another is to reminisce selectively.”

“Prosperity tries the fortunate, adversity the great.”

“I have had quite an interesting life. My husband was quite successful in the movies, and we went out frequently with Gloria Swanson and other stars.”