From dissent within the Kennedy family to the unexpected wisdom of Barbie, Yale's 2023 list of notable quotations have something for just about everyone.
This year's list is topped by Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s siblings, who condemned his presidential bid.
“Bobby might share the same name as our father, but he does not share the same values, vision or judgment," his siblings said in a joint statement in October. "We denounce his candidacy.”
Their father was Robert F. Kennedy, the U.S. attorney general, New York senator and President John F. Kennedy's brother.
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Kennedy Jr. is a bestselling author and environmental lawyer who is running as an independent after dropping his effort for the Democratic nomination. He has been one of the leading voices of the anti-vaccine movement, and health experts have joined his relatives in describing his work as misleading and dangerous.
The notable quotations list, compiled each year by Fred Shapiro, an associate director at the Yale Law Library, is a supplement to The New Yale Book of Quotations, which is edited by Shapiro and published by Yale University Press.
Nearly a year before George Santos was expelled from Congress on Dec. 1, he said something so widely criticized and mocked that it came in at No. 2 on this year's list. “I never claimed to be Jewish. I am Catholic. Because I learned my maternal family had a Jewish background I said I was ‘Jew-ish,’” he said.
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That quote appears alongside a memorable line from Barbie, played by Margot Robbie in one of this year's blockbuster movies, according to Shapiro. “Do you guys ever think about dying?” she asked, making No. 5 on the list.
“The items on this list are not necessarily eloquent or admirable quotations, rather they have been picked because they are famous or important or particularly revealing of the spirit of our times,” Shapiro said.