"Since he was at Brown, John had been studying his father's career by reading his papers & books ... biographies & history, by trying to wrap his mind around the ideas of leadership, power, politics & what it meant to be a Kennedy. In John's view, that pressure didn't come from what he felt his father expected. 'All these people have expectations of me because of my father, ... but I believe he would have wanted me to be whatever the hell I wanted.'

One time when we were kids, we ventured into his father's bedroom, next to his mother's, in the Hyannisport house. It had not been changed since the President had last used it. There were golf caps in the closet ... framed hand-painted birthday cards from Jackie to Jack. ... There was also an old seaman's chest... John opened it: In the President's distinctive scrawl, on yellow legal pads, were his notes ... John had never seen them before & quickly shut the chest, as if he had opened Pandora's box."
-"Forever Young," by Wm. Noonan