Kitty Kelley Quotations

Once I decide to do something, I can't have people telling me I can't. If there's a roadblock, you jump over it, walk around it, crawl under it.

The rumors of Frank Sinatra's violence and his ties to organized crime were such that journalists joked in print about me ending up in concrete boots and sleeping with the fishes if I proceeded to write his biography.

John F. Kennedy brought style and charisma to the White House and a first family that captivated the country: a handsome, witty president, an elegant first lady, and two adorable young children.

I would love to do an unauthorized biography about Congress... It's like a secret society up there.

My biography of Frank Sinatra is not paean to his music but rather an illumination of the man behind the music, who once described himself as 'an 18-karat manic-depressive who lived a life of violent emotional contradictions with an over-acute capacity for sadness as well as happiness.

Most historians agree that Abraham Lincoln was the most important man to ever occupy the White House because he abolished slavery and kept the states united through a bloody civil war.

A hero is someone we can admire without apology.

Gay marriage has jumped out of the closet on to the front page. Everyone from the president of the U.S. to retired four-star general Colin Powell is embracing the issue, now supported by most Americans. Still, a few people, like former First Lady Laura Bush appear to be conflicted.

Kennedy was haunted by the Bay of Pigs invasion but carried the country through the Cuban Missile Crisis. He later increased the number of U.S. military advisers to South Vietnam to more than 16,000.

Both Kennedy and Obama exuded a dash of glamour in their roles as commander-in-chief and became the darlings of Hollywood. As president, each brought to the White House a fashionable and accomplished First Lady, two adorable young children and scene-stealing pets.

Obama signed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act to ensure fair pay for women in the workplace. In addition, he succeeded in getting a measure passed to end discrimination against gays in the military.

I'm not surprised, but I am disappointed that Katharine Carr Esters claims that she was 'tricked' into divulging her true feelings about Oprah and that she now denies that she revealed to me the identity of Oprah's biological father.

There's still time for redemption if I live long enough, don't you think?

I tend to place my own value in spirituality rather than religiosity.

People forget that unauthorized does not mean untrue and authorized does not mean authentic.

I admired Eugene McCarthy's courage and although I left his Senate staff after four years to accept a job as the researcher on the editorial page of the 'Washington Post,' I remained an admirer.

Shortly after Senator Eugene J. McCarthy died in 2005 the age of 89, I became an honorary member of the committee starting a fellowship in McCarthy's name at his alma mater, Saint John's University in Collegeville, Minnesota.

I am what is known as a benched Catholic and disillusioned by the church doctrine. I believe in things the Catholic Church does not believe in: divorce being one, and a women's right to choose being another.

Presidents often disappoint, but first ladies rarely do.

He ordered killings as easily as he ordered linguine.

I have believed in the biographies I have written. I truly can tell you that they have influenced our society politically, culturally, socially.

JFK used to say the bishops and the cardinals were all Republicans, but the nuns were Democrats! I sort of believe that too.

Studies have been done showing that there really are gender differences, that women do bring more congeniality and compromise to the table.

The difference between authorized and unauthorized biographies is the difference between riding in carriage or squatting in steerage.

While many applauded Oprah for opening her heart to young girls in South Africa, some criticized her for not investing in the youth of America.

When Caroline Kennedy endorsed Barack Obama in 2008 as her father's rightful heir, she laid upon him the mantle of Camelot and the enduring mystique of John F. Kennedy, who, according to polls, continues to be America's most beloved president.

I can't say I wasn't warned. Alarms started clanging the day I signed to write 'His Way: The Unauthorized Biography of Frank Sinatra' (Bantam Books, 1986).

When Liz ran her column, Newsweek had to rip up their issue and run it sooner than they wanted, and the same with The Washington Post.

There's a curiosity factor, but not a fascination like there used to be.

The authorized biographers - the ones hand-picked to write the sanitized version of a subject's life - sit up front with the swells while the unauthorized biographer who writes without access or approval gets elbowed to the back of the bus.

The Family: The Real Story of the Bush Dynasty.

It would be morally reprehensible not to tell the truth... Everything I have written has stood the test of time.

The rumors of Frank Sinatras violence and his ties to organized crime were such that journalists joked in print about me ending up in concrete boots and sleeping with the fishes if I proceeded to write his biography.

I was raised Irish Catholic and went to Holy Names Academy, an all-girl's private Catholic school. I loved the nuns there and I love them to this day.

I don't give you editorial control. I want to meet you. I want to interview everybody who's ever known you. I want to see your correspondence. I want to see your bank statements. But you will have no control over what I write. That's why I really believe in the unauthorized biography.

Barack Obama and Michelle Obama don't go to Georgetown... The Clintons did, indeed. And the Clintons go out and about in Washington now. They go to neighborhood restaurants.

I only choose to write about people who are alive, are extremely powerful and as such have influenced our lives. I try to go behind their constructed myths to find the humanity of the person. It takes me about four years on every book and requires hundreds of interviews so I choose people whose lives I respect and achievements are worth recording.