72 JFK Quotes (2025) #3

JFK

Jim Garrison: Mr. Shaw, have you ever been a contract agent with the Central Intelligence Agency?
Clay Shaw aka Clay Bertrand: [smiles politely] And if I was, Mr. Garrison... do you think I would be here today... talking to somebody like you?

JFK

Jim Garrison: I never realized Kennedy was so dangerous to the establishment. Is that why?
X: Well that's the real question, isn't it? Why? The how and the who is just scenery for the public. Oswald, Ruby, Cuba, the Mafia. Keeps 'em guessing like some kind of parlor game, prevents 'em from asking the most important question, why? Why was Kennedy killed? Who

benefited? Who has the power to cover it up? Who?

JFK

Jim Garrison: I don't, I can't... I can't believe they killed him because he wanted to change things. In our time. In our country.
X: Well they've been doing it all through history. Kings are killed, Mr. Garrison, politics is power, nothing more! Oh, don't take my word for it, don't believe me. Do your own work, your own thinking.
Jim

Garrison: I can't. The size of this is... beyond me. Testify?
X: Me?
Jim Garrison: Testify.
X: Ha ha. No chance in hell. No, I'd be arrested and gagged, maybe sent to an institution, maybe worse, you too. Now I can give you the background, but you have to find the foreground, the little things. Keep digging. Remember,

you're the only person to bring a trial in the murder of John Kennedy. That's important, it's historic.
Jim Garrison: I haven't yet. I don't have much of a case.
X: You don't have a choice anymore. You've become a significant threat to the national security structure. They would have killed you already but you got a lot of light on you. Instead

they're trying to destroy your credibility. They already have in many circles in this town. Be honest, your only chance is to come up with a case. Something, anything. Make arrests, stir the shit storm, hope to reach a point of critical mass that'll start a chain reaction of people coming forward, then the government will crack. Remember, fundamentally, people are suckers for the truth - and the

truth is on your side, Bubba. I just hope you get a break.

JFK

White House Man: You can forget about your combat troops. He told McNamara he's gonna pull out the goddamn advisors! He fucked us in Laos and now he is gonna fuck us in Goddamn Vietnam!

JFK

Numa Bertel: There's a lot of smoke there, but there's some fire.

JFK

Jim Garrison: About as subtle as a cockroach crawlin' across a white rug!

JFK

Bill Brousard: Clay Bertrand is Clay Shaw?

JFK

X: No one has said 'he must die'. There's been no vote, nothing on paper, it's as old as the crucifixion. A military firing squad; five bullets, one blank, no one's guilty.

JFK

Guy Bannister: Camelot in smithereens.

JFK

Lyndon B. Johnson: You just get me elected, and I'll give you your damned war.

JFK

Lee Harvey Oswald: I am not resisting arrest! I am not resisting arrest!

JFK

Jim Garrison: If you let yourself be too scared then you let the bad guys take over the country, don't you? And then everybody gets scared.

JFK

Clay Shaw aka Clay Bertrand: One likes friends who has friends.
Dean Andrews: Indeed.

JFK

Beverly Oliver: Oh, yeah. One time I came in, Jack introduces me to these two guys. He said, "Beverly, this is my friend Lee..." and I didn't catch the other guy's name. He was a weird-looking guy with those funny little eyebrows. The other guy, Lee, didn't make much of an impression either. He wasn't good-looking or nothin', he didn't look like he had any money, and he was in a

bad mood, so I didn't pay him much mind. Well, I might not remember a name, but I always remember a face. When I saw him two weeks later on the television, I screamed, "Oh, my God. That's him! That's Jack's friend!" I knew right then it had something to do with the Mafia.

JFK

Dean Andrews: You as crazy as your mama. Goes to show it's in the genes.

JFK

Willie O'Keefe: They can't buy me, you can't buy me... it means fuck all to me!

JFK

Jim Garrison: It's gonna be OK, Dave. You just talk to us on the record, we'll protect you. I guarantee it.
David Ferrie: They'll get to you too. They'll destroy you. They're untouchable, man.

JFK

Jim Garrison: Of course, when he had realized that something had gone wrong, and that the President had been killed, he knew there was a problem. He may have even known he was the Patsy. An intuition, maybe. The President killed in spite of his warning. The phone call that never came. Perhaps fear now came to Oswald for the very first time.

JFK

Senator Long: The way those hippies look, you can't tell the boys from the girls!
[laughs]
Senator Long: I saw a girl yesterday, she was pregnant. Had her whole belly showin' and ya know what she had painted on it? "Love Child"!
[laughs]