Harry Reid Quotes

Most negotiators are trying to get their way.

We are making remarkable progress toward an agreement—and toward a nervous breakdown. It's going to be a race to see which we achieve first.

It takes two sides to make a deal, two sides to negotiate and two sides to make it go bad.

It's the perfect definition of a settlement. Both parties didn't get what they wanted.

Battle, n., A method of untying with the teeth a political knot that would not yield to the tongue.

No system can guard against turmoil in the case of a tie. And this is a tie.

Recesses [in negotiations] allow positions to become entrenched.

In Washington the word “compromise” has come to mean “surrender.” You just can’t do it

You start as far to the right as you can get, and go to the Conference Committee with the Senate, and hopefully end up with something you can live with.

A compromise is a settlement by which each side gets what neither side wanted.

I would love nothing more than compromise. But I would say to you that compromise that's not a solution is a waste of time.

We all agree on the necessity of compromise. We just can't agree on when it's necessary to compromise.

If we cannot agree, then at least we ought to move on.

My people were divided about surrendering.

Conciliation is not capitulation, nor is compromise to be deemed equivalent to imbalanced concession.

I don't like a tremendous amount of conflict. I don't think that fighting and passion are the same thing.

It has been one of my difficulties, in arguing this question out of doors with friends or strangers, that I rarely find any intelligible agreement as to the object of the war.

Both sides think that they have a good chance of winning. That’s the recipe for a long war.

A result of accommodation and compromise cannot be supposed perfectly to coincide with any one’s idea of perfection.

All legislation is founded upon the principle of mutual concession.

Do you know what it takes to get a good piece of legislation passed ... one that everyone agrees on? The egos. The turf battles.... It's incredible.

October will not provide a wholesome atmosphere for discussion of such a question.

The term negotiation implies compromise; painful concessions on the part of both parties.

It was a remarkably reasonable compromise. It pleased nobody, but everybody signed on.

When men understand what each other mean, they see for the most part, that controversy is either superfluous or hopeless.