He lived too long to receive the mythologizing that his older brothers received and, so, strode among us more like a man than a demigod. Of course, the mythologizing of Jack and Bobby placed them at level Ted Kennedy would never achieve. His lot was to stay behind and watch over the Kennedy clan and do the hard work in the Senate over decades, work that has wrought justice and help for millions of Americans. He has always been my favorite of the three and I have often wished that he could have been President. I think he would have made a good and principled president.

I'm sorry that he's gone. I'll miss his fire and compassion and fearlessness in promoting a righteous cause. Many are the better because Ted Kennedy lived.

The coward got 40 more years than Mary Jo Kopechne. Autopsy showed no sign of a brain. Screw him.

It is not for us to judge others. Everyone is doing the best they can; not the best they know how, but the best they can.

Whatever else he was, he was a father, a responsibility and role greater than that of his public office.

To his children, whom he loved, who loved him, and did not judge him: Kara Anne Kennedy, Edward Kennedy, Jr., and Patrick J. Kennedy, yours is a grief and loss with which your father did not wish to leave you.