He [John F. Kennedy] might have envisioned himself being "alone, at the top" but, like Woodrow Wilson, he would find out that not even a President moves free of human entanglement, human needs, human illusions; not even a President can be independent of those around him.

Most presidents come to Washington bright as freshly minted dimes and leave much diminished.

I want the people to love me, but I suppose they never will.

The main problem with being president is the constant sense that you are inside a glass bowl for everyone to see, or in a kind of barometric chamber with an artificial atmosphere where you must stay all the time.