[ Responding to the question, “How did you become a war hero?” :] It was involuntary. They sank my boat.

[ Of the Bay of Pigs invasion :] All my life I’ve known better than to depend on the experts. How could I have been so stupid, to let them go ahead?

[ On the appointment of his brother Robert F. Kennedy as attorney general :] I can’t see that it’s wrong to give him a little legal experience before he goes out to practice law.

[ Remark to advisers after United States Steel raised prices on the heels of a labor settlement negotiated by Kennedy, 12 Apr. 1962 :] My father always told me that all business men were sons-of-bitches but I never believed it till now!

The definition of happiness of the Greeks . . . is full use of your powers along lines of excellence. I find, therefore, the Presidency provides some happiness.

Every American ought to have the right to be treated as he would wish to be treated, as one would wish his children to be treated. But this is not the case.

Yesterday a shaft of light cut into the darkness. . . . For the first time, an agreement has been reached on bringing the forces of nuclear destruction under international control.

We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills.

We are prepared to discuss a détente affecting NATO and the Warsaw pact.

Some men are killed in a war and some men are wounded, and some men never leave the country, and some men are stationed in the Antarctic and some are stationed in San Francisco. It’s very hard in military or in personal life to assure complete equality. Life is unfair.