Catholics want what other Americans want: access to health care and jobs that pay a living wage. They want to send their kids to good schools. They want something done about poverty.
— Kerry Kennedy
I think that on the Democratic side, Bernie Sanders talks about income inequality and poverty alleviation, and those issues are so important.
Every time you say 'I don't want to hear it' when someone is going to tell an ethnic joke, or every time you help somebody cross the street or put money in the bucket in your place of worship, you're making a difference.
There was no sense of burden, like, 'I now must carry on Robert Kennedy's unfinished work.' Absolutely not.
I've learned powerful lessons about the nature of forgiveness from human rights defenders. For example, for the greater good of his country, Kofi Woods emerged from a torture chamber in Liberia to later defend the very men who had brutalized him.
My earliest memories are when my father was the attorney general at the height of the Civil Rights Movement. We would go to visit him at the Justice Department and take the tunnel over to the FBI building and watch the sharpshooters at practice.
So when people say how horrible it is that Donald Trump is president, well, yeah, but we've faced a lot worse than this and our country went on to go from the world of 'Mad Men' to the world it is today, and that's what's going to happen now. That's what's going to happen in the next 50 years. We're going to be fine.
Ambien is one of the most prescribed pills in America. A lot of people take it every night or several times a week or several times a month in order to help them sleep. I'm just not one of those people. That's the perception of me. But that's not the reality.
Having a sense of humor is a part of being courageous. It's a source of strength.
My father loved democracy. He loved the ancient Greeks because they invented democracy, and he shared their contempt for those who refused to participate in the political process.
In planes, I used to try to look behind the clouds to see if I saw an angel.
I have 10 brothers and sisters. My mother raised us because my father died when I was 8.
We've got to pass legislation which will allow people to have access to competent counsel no matter who they are.
I thought of running for office when I was in law school, but I wanted to work on human rights.
At the moment of greatest love, there is greatest fear, and at the moment of enormous repression, there is resistance, and therefore a chance at revolutionary change.
After my father died, we went to church for a long time every day, and then every other day during the summer.
So I think that having Donald Trump as president of our country, and also his impact around the world, would have left my father in dismay.
I think there are many Democrats who are good, strong leaders. The person I like the most is my nephew, Congressman Joe Kennedy.
Well, I don't think any of the Republicans have expressed any interest in supporting the vision of Robert Kennedy at all. At least I haven't seen that.
When I started working in human rights, Eastern Europe was communist, South Africa was under apartheid and South Korea had military rule. All the changes have come about not because of the militaries or government but because small groups of people spoke out against what was unfair and unjust.
Look, my mother's not a welfare woman. She certainly had plenty of help. But there's no substitute for a husband and partner.
Those who suffer profoundly are granted profound wisdom.
There are no wealthy people on Rikers Island because if you are wealthy, you go free because you make bail.
The result of being a Kennedy is that I have extraordinary opportunities that I wouldn't otherwise have.
I think of myself as a human-rights advocate and as a mother.
I understood at a young age that administrations come and go, but laws stay. So I decided to become a lawyer in order to help create a more just and peaceful world, not just in a fleeting moment but in a way that will endure from one generation to the next.
My earliest memories are of visiting the justice department.
When I was younger, I had so many people in my family die. In my mind, heaven was as physical a place as home or school, and I knew that everyone I loved was together, enormously happy, and watching over me and awaiting my coming to this extraordinary place.
It's hard to have both parents involved in elective office at the same time.
In fact, most people who are bullies are people who have been abused in one way or the other in some other part of their life, and somebody who is bullied at school might come home and bully their younger siblings or their cousins or other people in their neighborhood, or in cyberspace.
I'm not the most organized person.
I have to tell you, virtually every country I've gone to, the Catholic church is on the cutting edge of social change. Really extraordinary.
Daddy was never ruthless but he was tough.
Daddy loved our country, he loved our history. He was always talking about American history and telling us stories from American history, and loved our most treasured values of freedom, democracy, justice.
When people ask me what's really important about my father, I think the most important thing about him was his moral imagination.
I appreciate that Marco Rubio has called for immigration reform but he goes back and forth on it a little bit.
You don't need a passport to work on human rights.
Forgiveness is a gift, and central to faith.
Over the decades people from all walks of life have told me, 'When your father died, so did my hope.'
It's important to reach out to people who are marginalized.
In my human-rights work, perhaps the most important thing is gaining the trust of the victims.
In a sense, all of us have the capacity to be courageous.
I grew up outside of Washington D.C., a town in which the largest industry is government and in which almost everyone I knew was involved in creating policies which impact people across our country and around the globe.
I myself am a soccer mom, a volleyball mom and a basketball mom.
The time of day when there was quiet and serenity was every night when we gathered in my parents' bedroom and knelt down together and prayed.
Elective office is one of many ways to serve the community and the country. It's one that I would consider at some point.
I married a politician. But I thought it would be tough for my children to have two parents as politicians.
There were times I should have been completely emotionally available to my kids and I wasn't there, even for reading a book with them or watching TV or tucking my daughter into bed.
I went to the Convent of the Sacred Heart for four years. It was interesting to me because, in a family where men were clearly favored over women, this was an atmosphere, a world, run by strong, determined, smart women in leadership, who had high expectations of the girls, and this tremendous sense of love and commitment to the wider world.
I loved that television show Mad Men because it really was a reminder of what reality was back then.
