In his words, as in life, he was a politician unafraid to address issues in a direct and occasionally controversial manner.
* "For all those whose cares have been our concern, the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives and the dream shall never die" - addressing the Democratic National Convention after pulling out of the presidential race, August 1980.
* "Frankly, I don't mind not being president. I just mind that someone else is" - at Washington Gridiron Club dinner, March 1986.
* "Well, here I don't go again" - on not running for president in 1988.
* "Ulster is becoming Britain's Vietnam" - on The Troubles in Northern Ireland, October 1971
* "My brother need not be idealised or enlarged in death beyond what he was in life, to be remembered as a good and decent man, who saw wrong and tried to right it, saw suffering and tried to heal it, saw war and tried to stop it" - eulogy for brother Robert Kennedy, June 1968.
* "I regard as indefensible the fact that I did not report the accident to the police immediately" - during a televised statement after he pleaded guilty to leaving the scene of an accident in regards to the Chappaquiddick incident, July 1969
* "What we have in the United States is not so much a health-care system as a disease-care system" - on health care reform for which he campaigned throughout his life, 1994
* "With Barack Obama, we will turn the page on the old politics of misrepresentation and distortion. With Barack Obama we will close the book on the old politics of race against race, gender against gender, ethnic group against ethnic group, and straight against gay" - endorsing Barack Obama for president, January 2008.
