Bob Kerrey Quotations

When you're fighting for economic and social justice, you're always fighting for the minority.

Like Jonah, the whale had swallowed me; unlike him, I believed I would spend eternity inside the belly of the beast.

There is no force more liberating than the knowledge that you are fighting for others.

I value public service and I'm relatively good at organizing political causes.

The only medal that I am certain I deserved is the Purple Heart.

I've been a Yankees fan since I was six.

But on the big things, I'm not going to trim in order to win public opinion. Because I really don't want to serve in the Senate if I arrive there without permission to do the things I think need to be done.

If you look beyond the short term violence and instability, you do see significant activities on the part of the Iraqi people that indicate they understand the commitment necessary to govern themselves. Its not clear how they will do it, but it never is.

The problem is you tend to look back and identify mistakes, and as a consequence of feeling terrible about mistakes you say you bungled this so bad, let's get out of here.

Cuba wants to get rid of a dictator, and baseball needs a dictator.

The idea that somebody who has done something horrible in a war is not willing to talk about it for 32 years is hardly a shocking idea. Quite the contrary.

The cheapest gift I have to give is kindness, and it is the best.

It's not clear in the U.S. at the moment, either. We're going through another election.

It was not just inappropriate behavior

My view is that you never argue with the customer about your name.

A hero is someone who over and over does the right thing even though no one is there to witness it.

I thought dying for your country was the worst thing that could happen to you. I think killing for your country can be a lot worse. Because that's the memory that haunts.

When I say be skeptical of everything I mean it. Just because someone was elected to do a job doesn't mean that person has any idea of what they're doing.

Unexpected kindness is the most powerful, least costly, and most underrated agent of human change. Kindness that catches us by surprise brings out the best in our natures.

Clinton's an unusually good liar. Unusually Good. Do you realize that?

Slow down, especially at the beginning of a speech. You'll get the audience's attention by pausing.

We're $5 billion or $6 billion short of getting people trained to a level that would make me comfortable.

I would not say 'impossible,' ... But, boy, it feels awfully close to it.

I think the Congress should begin to examine what they need to subpoena. They clearly need to get to the bottom of this.

It is likely that the biggest contributor is popular culture. A show like 'Project Runway' brands Parsons all the time, and that has had an impact on the number of people who want to become fashion designers. It's been largely good for the school.

I saw women and children in front of us being hit and cut to pieces... After that night...I had become someone I did not recognize.

We're all seeing the same thing - our students, our staff and our faculty are asking that we provide quality facilities. They matter. They affect the decision to come, the decision to stay and the quality of the work while you're here.

There are going to be in the short term terrifying, confusing moments (like) attacks on Iraqi police headquarters. The intent (by the opposition) is to produce destabilization, to cause people to say let's get out of here, they don't like us.... I don't think the U.S. is going to cut and run.

We expected it to be a very difficult mission, and we met some people we believed were the outpost and we killed them,

We don't understand why a surveillance opportunity wasn't granted. If the Justice Department isn't at fault, then the process is at fault.

(We) went on and took fire where we expected this meeting to occur, and we returned very lethal fire. And when the firing was over, all we had was women and children that were dead.

Every person who has gone to war has struggled with the question of, 'did he do it right?' and I have struggled with that question privately since February of 1969,

I still don't believe that Congress and the Bush administration are giving enough to thwart a terror attack here or to train first responders in (the New York) region.

The skills and methods of video games are becoming a part of our life and culture in so many ways that it is impossible to ignore.

You're asking too much of me right now. ... I'm just trying to get a private memory, public.

A lot of students that come out of this program may not go to work for Electronic Arts. They may go to Wall Street. Because to me, there is no significant difference - except for clothing preference - between people who are making games and people who are manipulating huge database systems to try to figure out where the markets are headed. It's largely the same skill set, the critical thinking. Games are becoming a major part of our lives, and there is actually good news in that.

It was not a secret to our commanding officer about what happened that night,

It's very important for Americans to put the size of this threat in perspective, ... Just as it is a terrible mistake to underestimate a threat, and I think we underestimated a threat of espionage by the Chinese all the way through the 1980s and the 1990s, it is also a big risk for us to overestimate the threat. This is not the worst case of espionage in the 20th century.

It's not clear in the U.S. at the moment, either. We're going through another election.

I love Gerhard, ... We've talked to one another over the past 32 years. He's never expressed anything of the kind to me over that period of time.

If you just look at the surface of people playing games, you are missing the point, which is that games are all about managing and manipulating information.

I just don't know. It feels like a rematch going on right now. This thing may go all the way to 2004.

I believe Bill Bradley's leadership ... is needed in the United States of America in the 21st century,

For the first 10 years (afterward), I just tried to figure out how to get healthy again.