Raymond Kelly Quotes

Between you and me, I think that may be one of the things that will help with the collaboration, because there are things Eric thinks I'm moving too quickly on, and there are things I think he's dragging out. When it gets to the editor they can arbitrate.

I don't think that confrontation always leads to a solution.

Surely, serious problems can't be solved just by talking about them.

Confrontation is something that I accept as part of the project though not its purpose.

Look, not everybody plays well with each other on the playground. I get that, that's politics.

Because everyone in the world has the power to edit, Wikipedia has long been plagued by the so-called edit war. This is like a house where the husband wants it warm and the wife wants it cool and they sneak back and forth adjusting the thermostat at cross purposes.

When people disagree with you, what you ultimately have to do is persuade people to agree with you - period.

I have a partner, Danny Strong; he's an incredible writer and, really, my backbone. So when we don't see eye to eye, it's painful.

I worked with a group of people who argued day and night - professors, officials, the Minister of Finance - but there were decisions that I had to make.

Talk is over-rated as a means of settling disputes.

Why are we talking about talking? Why negotiating about negotiating? It's very simple. If you want to get to peace, put all your preconditions on the side, sit down opposite a table, not in a studio, by the way.

Anytime you get nine people together, whether it's at a party or it's in the conference room of the Supreme Court, you do have to maintain some order, or it does kind of degenerate into squabbling pretty quickly.

You can never solve a problem without talking to people with whom you disagree. The United States Senate is predicated and based on consensus building. That was certainly the vision of the founding fathers.

I don't have the ability to find a middle ground with my audiences, and I know this too well.

Arguments are to be avoided: they are always vulgar and often convincing.

Boards and myself get along somehow.

Jaw jaw is better than war war.

We are disagreeing. We are failing to reach compromises. But we are not killing each other.

Leaders alone can rarely make peace. They have to bring people along.

We can calm down our argument a little so that we can learn what it is that we are actually arguing about.

Negotiation or Compromise can get you beat.

If we can’t agree on the facts, how can we agree on the solutions?

A huge amount of negotiations and diplomacy has nothing to do with bartering or arguing but is just trying to get everyone [doing the negotiating] on the same page. It takes yours, days, even weeks sometimes.

You're in a band with someone, it doesn't necessarily mean you're going to agree with everything they think or do.

When we come into the NSC, everybody has different opinions. At the end of the day, we present the president with all the facts. We let him make the decision. And we all, as a team, go out and support that decision.