NEW YORK - Reaction to the death of presidential speechwriter Richard Goodwin:

— "It was the adventure of a lifetime to be married for 42 years to this incredible force of nature — the smartest, most interesting, most loving person I have ever known. How lucky I have been to have had him by my side as we built our family and our careers together surrounded by close friends in a community we love," Goodwin's wife, historian Doris Kearns Goodwin, said in a statement.

— "Boy, he could write, what a great writer. The (civil rights speech) he wrote for (Lyndon) Johnson, it was pretty awesome," former President Bill Clinton, during an interview with The Associated Press on Monday.

— "Dick Goodwin was a citizen in the truest sense of the word — someone who, with joy and purpose, joined all who came before in that long march to make America a freer, more equal, more just, more caring and prosperous place for all who came after," former President Barack Obama, in a statement.

— "The great Richard Goodwin, rest in peace," Rachel Maddow, in a tweet.

— "The pantheon of presidential speechwriters is really very small — and there is no question that Dick Goodwin belongs in it, right up there with Ted Sorensen and Sam Rosenman as speechwriters who contributed not only memorable lines, but ideas, arguments, an intellectual basis for presidential action. Words, for Goodwin, were never an end in themselves; they were an instrument, as he put it, to 'move men to action and alliance,'" author and former White House speechwriter Jeff Shesol in an email to the AP.

— "Richard Goodwin, my friend, a mentor, a history-maker who wrote many of the most memorable words that defined, infused and inspired our lives and time. I mourn his loss and celebrate his gifts and the difference he made," Democratic consultant/speechwriter Robert Shrum in a tweet.

— "Throughout his life, Concord's Richard Goodwin believed that history itself could be bent to the just needs of humanity. Mr. Goodwin left an enduring mark on nat'l politics as an aide to Presidents Kennedy & Johnson & to several presidential campaigns," Rep. Nikki Tsongas, D-Massachusetts, in a tweet.

News from © The Associated Press, 2018