Caroline Kennedy
Caroline Kennedy
Caroline Bouvier Kennedy is an American author, attorney, and diplomat who is currently the United States Ambassador to Japan. She is a prominent member of the Kennedy family and the only surviving child of President John F. Kennedy and First Lady Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy. She is a niece of Senators Robert F. Kennedy and Ted Kennedy and older sister to the late John F. Kennedy Jr...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionPolitician
Date of Birth27 November 1957
CityNew York City, NY
CountryUnited States of America
The happiest years of my mother's life were spent in Washington, D.C. It was where she met my father, where John was born and where I spent my earliest years.
I grew up in a household where reading was encouraged. My mother believed in the power of words, and my father obviously did too.
I don't remember my father reading to me, but I remember him telling me bedtime stories. I got to pick what was in them, and then he'd make them up.
I think one of my father's great legacies is the people that he inspired and the generation that he inspired transformed America through civil rights, women's rights, equal justice, and they've passed that on to their children and grandchildren.
I feel that my father's greatest legacy was the people he inspired to get involved in public service and their communities, to join the Peace Corps, to go into space. And really that generation transformed this country in civil rights, social justice, the economy and everything.
I have never had a president who inspired me the way people tell me that my father inspired them. But for the first time, I believe I have found the man who could be that president - not just for me, but for a new generation of Americans.
U.S. Rep. John Murtha and Alberto Mora exemplify the kind of courage my father admired most. When others were unwilling to do so, each man recognized a moral obligation to speak out against policies he believed were misguided and contrary to our national interest.
My mother ... had a very deep inner spirituality that allowed her to rebuild her life. It's extraordinary that she had such a strong sense of self and such a commitment to the future and such a strong creative sense that she could build new worlds for herself and for us out of the total devastation in her life.
There's so much to think about when you're becoming an adult, and there's so many great poems about that apprehension and excitement.
Well, the role of money in politics is pretty corrupting right now.
I'm not as shy as everybody makes me out to be.
Well there's nobody who has a more supportive husband than I do, and he has a business that he runs, and it's his own business, so he has work to do, my kids have school to do, I mean, people have - there are other things in life besides politics.
I never thought I'd be doing poetry books. I never really studied poetry. But the first one I did was after my mother died, and I realized that people sort of think and talk about her style and fashion, but in fact, what made her the person she was was really her love of reading and ideas.
In a funny way, poems are suited to modern life. They're short, they're intense. Nobody has time to read a 700-page book. People read magazines, and a poem takes less time than an article.