Born in 1951, U.S. Sen. Robert Torricelli grew up in the last great age of public speaking, listening to speeches of people like John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy. These were moving rhetoricians that seemed to combine literary knowledge with a passion for speech-making that more modern public figures seem to lack.
Few of those great speakers touched him so deeply as Robert Kennedy did – a man whose influence, Torricelli claims, helped create in him an interest in public service.
“Robert Kennedy is my political hero and the man whose quotes I most admire,” Torricelli said last week. “His ability to cite literature and verse with great ease is compelling and he possessed lyrical skills that have hardly been matched in history.” Torricelli noted that his favorite quote by Kennedy is “Freedom by itself is not enough…what counts is the use to which men put freedom, because it so succinctly gives a sense of our responsibilities as Americans.”
In the back of his mind, Torricelli cradled that era of great speech-making, holding out hope that such an era might re-emerge and that he might have a role in its revival.
Over the last few years, Torricelli’s dream has come closer to reality with the publication of two books by Rutgers University Press: “In our own words: Extraordinary speech of the American Century,” published last year, and “Quotations for Public Speakers: A historical, literary, and political anthology,” published this month.
On Nov. 20, Senator Torricelli will come to Hoboken’s Barnes & Noble to appear as a book-signing author.
A curious road to publication
Born in Paterson, Torricelli was the son of a school librarian and an attorney. His mother fueled his interest in politics with history lessons out of the library. His mother also took him on trips around the country and the world. She brought him to Georgia at the height of segregation in the early 1960s, and to Israel to view one of the most conflicted parts of the planet. Torricelli later attended Rutgers University and successfully worked on Brendan Byrne’s gubernatorial campaign in 1973 and eventually worked as a deputy legislative counsel to the governor. After graduating Rutgers Law School, he went to Washington, D.C. where he served as counsel to the vice president.
That was 1978 and he was 26 years old. Almost as soon as he arrived, he confronted what he calls his “first genuinely sobering experience.”
The vice president needed a speech and all the speechwriters were busy. Torricelli got the assignment.
“Some basic idea arrived in a simple memo attached to an old black loose-leaf notebook,” he said.
In it, he found phrases and quotes, collected by the men who had owned the notebook before him, Vice Presidents Walter Mondale and Hubert Humphrey. This was not textbook material or the dull literary quotations found in typical books. These were real-life quotes, jotted down by these important men who thought they might be useful later.
“It has traveled with me every since,” Torricelli said. “Often it would rest in the leather pouch behind the seat of my campaign car.”
Over the years, Torricelli has been everywhere. His trips around the United States and the world usually involve a variety of cultural shifts. In one trip in 1998, for instance, Torricelli visited the Hard Rock Cafe as well as the mess halls of an aircraft carrier. On other trips, he has addressed foreign dignitaries, businesspeople and ordinary citizens, and few people realized he was collecting their thoughts.
Someone taking note of him when he reads might see him jotting down something in the margin of a book, or perhaps, if they are very lucky, might have seen him draw out that old notebook from his brief case to scribble something inside it.
“As my life in public service progressed, I continued to gather quotes for use in public speaking engagements,” he said. “In nearly 20 years in Congress I have had the opportunity to collect a very large portfolio of quotes from a broad range of sources.”
Shaping the quotes into a book
Over the years, the old notebook grew until Torricelli had several thousand entries. From these, Torricelli selected 2,300 to put into his book, from 840 different writers, poets and politicians. The book is divided into 50 subject areas, from Action to Youth, and includes quotes from people like Albert Einstein and Woody Allen.
“As a Member of Congress, I am called on to speak publicly nearly every day in some fashion,” Torricelli said. “I have found no book of quotations adequate for the purpose of public speaking because most books of quotations are written for use in term papers or publications. I felt it was time for a book that focused on public speaking and the collection that I had amassed provided a good beginning.”
He said he developed this collection to be useful.
“Every professional is called upon to speak at some point in some way,” he said. “Someone in business, a civic leader or someone in politics – all are required to speak at some point and all should have a resource that will allow them to add so much power to their words. A good quotation can crystallize a thought for an audience and can solidify a point for a speaker. Every professional will need to do that sometime during his or her career.”
This book is a natural extension of Torrcelli’s first book. He said contemporary speeches are less formal and less literary than the speeches with which he grew up.
“The educational system no longer plays up the great rhetoric of the past, leaving a gap in people’s lives when it comes to poetry and literary references,” he said. “That’s why this book is so useful. People are less aware of literary, poetry and history than in previous times. Literary and history give speech depth and quality.”
By supplying people with the tools they need, words and quotations in this book, as well as examples of great speech-making in his first book, Torricelli hopes to help generate a new generation of great speech-making.