I think the most important thing I wanted to say at various times to Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt was that it seemed so sad to me that - I really believe they loved each other and had a great deal of affection - but because of that early hurt in their marriage, there was a certain kind of distance from then on, until their deaths actually. So at times, I just wanted to push them together and say, "Come on, you guys! I know you love each other. This is crazy!"
Doris Kearns GoodwinThe one thing that John Kennedy did, above all else, was to energize young people to feel that they wanted to give something to their country. I just hope, for young people of this generation, that they'll experience that feeling once again, that by working on large goals, they can do something more than their own individual ambition.
Doris Kearns Goodwinall through my childhood, my father kept from me the knowledge that the daily papers printed daily box scores, allowing me to believe that without my personal renderings of all those games he missed while he was at work, he would be unable to follow our team in the only proper way a team should be followed, day by day, inning by inning. In other words, without me, his love for baseball would be forever incomplete.
Doris Kearns GoodwinPeople tease me about knowing somehow that Obama would put Clinton into the cabinet, and everybody would talk about a team of rivals.
Doris Kearns GoodwinThat is what leadership is all about: staking your ground ahead of where opinion is and convincing people, not simply following the popular opinion of the moment.
Doris Kearns GoodwinI keep thinking that history runs in cycles, and that some day certain large issues will come before the country again. There will be leaders that inspire young people. I don't think it means that it's over forever, but I'm getting pretty impatient. I'm hoping it comes soon, so that my young people can know that experience that we knew in the '60s, and that the World War II generation knew during the '40s.
Doris Kearns Goodwin