Billy Tauzin Quotes

Unilateralism in secret is sometimes necessary at the height of a crisis.

Amid the pressure of great events, a general principle gives no help.

For the most part, I have a very manageable celebrity. People recognize me from time to time, and they usually say very appreciative things. It affords me a great deal of pleasure.

When I read Thirteen Days I was moved by it. It was just a great time for the world, in terms of looking back in history and seeing how we got ourselves into trouble and how we got ourselves out of trouble.

I have a great deal of empathy for anyone who's having a hard time. I believe this ability to see another's viewpoint has served me well as a writer.

I learned this a long time ago. If you call a guy into your office and shut the door, if there's media around, it sends up a red flag. I never wanted to embarrass a player.

The temptation in any approaching crisis or conflict is, because people haven't got a clue what lies ahead, they're always searching into the past for some sort of pattern ... to galvanise the nation or their supporters and put themselves on a pedestal to sound Churchillian or Rooseveltian.

Obama is thoroughly mixed up with all these things he's got. He's got to solve Libya. He's got to solve Afghanistan. He's everywhere. And this nation, I don't know why it's not showing the leadership and capacity to attend different issues at the same time.

George Bush has shown great skill at disguising an incredibly weak foreign policy.

Whenever we get involved in a war, the White House seems to have 3 priorities: We cannot appear to be losing; we must appear to be winning; we must look like we know what we are doing.

The United States has become geopolitically hobbled seemingly interested in grand strategic initiatives or transformative diplomacy, as its attention constantly dances from one crisis to another.

My theory on an existing crisis is that you have to be very strategic about each case's unique elements. If a crisis involves a legal component, you need a communication strategy that complements the company's legal objective. A strategy for a plea deal is different than a case going to trial.

You cannot prevent and prepare for war at the same time.

Foreign policy commands attention when it's crisis management. A street revolt breaks out in Egypt or Libya or Kiev and everyone asks, how should the president respond? Now these are important parts of America's role in the world, but they are essentially reactive and tactical. The broader challenge is to lay down a longer-term strategy that endures after the crisis of the moment.

When you have a time of crisis what happens depends on what ideas are floating around, and what ideas have been developed, and thought through, and are made effective.

Having seen first-hand how complex and difficult the job is, I believe it vital that the president be able to focus on his never-ending tasks with as few distractions as possible.

I will say this about the truth - that it's one of those crisis rules, whether you are a client or someone who's living their life just every day - is that the truth has a funny way of not going away, and telling the truth is extremely important in dealing with any problem or crisis.

There's always an opportunity with crisis. Just as it forces an individual to look inside himself, it forces a company to reexamine its policies and practices.

Bishops need to resist the defensiveness that institutions often fall back on in crisis moments.

The longer it takes to respond to a major development or crisis, the higher the chance of violence being seen as the only answer.

I'm very much aware of the need for politicians to be careful with language as well as what they do.

The discourse of sovereignty is a relative one when a crisis has become a global crisis.

When clients are involved in a crisis, we often start at the end. When this is over, where do you want to end up? What's your endgame? We try to start from that and work ourselves back.

Commanders-in-chief make really tough decisions.

In the Army, we address a crisis by identifying critical objectives, planning a response, marshaling resources and communicating the plan clearly.