Louise Linton Quotes

You learn, just as you learn good manners, how to approach things with a certain amount of diplomacy.

In order to be a diplomat, one must speak a number of languages, including doubletalk.

I'm simply saying that there are advantages in sending a skilled diplomat who can always say, 'I'll get back to you on that, Mr. Minister'.

Well, the thing that I learned as a diplomat is that human relations ultimately make a huge difference.

It is fortunate that diplomats have long noses since they usually cannot see beyond them.

My diplomatic position will not consist of going and kneeling down in front of George Bush.

You'd make a great Secretary of State because State Department personnel don't answer questions completely either.

A pupil of diplomacy has to learn three things: to speak French, to speak nothing, and to speak falsehood.

I know the pros and cons of not being diplomatic.

I have to be as much diplomat as a photographer.

In most cases, cables are marked secret not because the U.S. requires it but because those speaking to us - the foreign leaders across the table - do. They are not keeping secrets from us, but from two other groups: their enemies and their subjects.

Diplomats were invented simply to waste time.

To say nothing, especially when speaking, is half the art of diplomacy.

In the world of diplomacy, some things are better left unsaid.

We always have hoped that American diplomacy deploys itself in dialogue and persuasion rather than by ultimatums. That is the path we want in international relations.

Richard Holbrooke is known for many things, but I will remember him as an impressive, sometimes even intimidating diplomat who understood the value of culture in diplomacy.

Diplomacy is the art of saying 'Nice doggie' until you can find a rock.

I don't think the United States has done anything whatsoever to merit any criticism by the British.

By the way, if you do your job on behalf of your country, you have meetings where you put your position forward strongly, and the other side does the same thing. And I've had plenty of meetings in my career that really were heated, people yelling at each other.

Diplomacy is more than saying or doing the right things at the right time, it is avoiding saying or doing the wrong things at any time.

You ought to dialogue first before you start throwing spears. And I think the U.N. provides an opportunity for dialogue.

I'm not sure how a world leader reacts to the work of a clown.

The function of a briefing paper is to prevent the ambassador from saying something dreadfully indiscreet. I sometimes think its true object is to prevent the ambassador from saying anything at all.

The old diplomat liked to move with deliberation, in secret, following well-established traditions and working through what he loved to describe as "the usual channels". To him, the open debate carried on, not by professional diplomats, but by politicians and statesmen having little regard for the use of the technical phraseology of diplomacy and intent merely on reaching results which would make diplomacy unnecessary, was offensive to all his instincts.

The limits of diplomacy must be acknowledged.