Diplomatic Reception Quotes

Peking welcomed me with tremendous parades and gun salutes. The people with me are proud of me, proud that our downtrodden country has taken its place among the great nations. And now, people of America, I ask you, why didn't Eisenhower accord me the same respect?

Lange was hosting a reception at Vogel House for the Chinese politician Hu Yao Bang when the lights went out. Lange immediately asked all the guests to raise their hands because "many hands make light work." The audience complied, and to their amazement the lights immediately came back on. Lange was invited to visit China.

I literally touched down in Kosovo and the president, prime minister and mayor were waiting for me to get off the plane. Apparently that's unheard of. They don't wait for nobody.

Washington is the only city in the world where you can go to a black-tie dinner and there at the foot of the table is a television set up to catch a press conference.

To have people to the White House and worry about the price of things is laughable.

Arranging an official dinner in an embassy is a little like writing a script for a play. The prolog is the guest list, often the most difficult part of the whole creative operation.

I think it's very sad, when you look at Barack Obama, as an example, lands Air Force One in China, and they don't want to put out stairs to get off the plane. And he has to use the stairs that mechanics use to get up and down to fix the plane. They wouldn't give him stairs.

We'd play at the Ambassador's house for an invited group of dignitaries from the government that might have gone to school in America; to the U.S. Consulate that invites certain people that they're trying to target.

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

I think it's very sad, when Barack Obama lands in Saudi Arabia, and he lands in Cuba, and there aren't high officials to even greet him.

We were very kindly received by the English merchants to whom my companion had letters, and we set ourselves to learn what was the real state of things in Mexico.

The people of this country are remarkable for their hospitable reception of foreigners, and for their forgetfulness of past animosities. Napoleon Bonaparte, the greatest enemy that England ever had, was treated while at Plymouth with respect, and with commiseration while at St Helena. Marshal Soult, who had fought in many battles against the English, was received with generous acclamation when he came here as Special Ambassador. The King of the French, Mons. Guizot, and Prince Metternich, though all of them great antagonists of English policy and English interests, were treated in this country with courtesy and kindness. But General Haynau was looked upon as a great moral criminal; …. But Viscount Palmerston can assure your Majesty that those feelings of just and honorable indignation have not been confined to England, for he had good reason to know that General Haynau's ferocious and unmanly treatment of the unfortunate inhabitants of Brescia and of other towns and places in Italy, his savage proclamations to the people of Pesth, and his barbarous acts in Hungary excited almost as much disgust in Austria as in England, and that the nickname of "General Hyæna" was given to him at Vienna long before it was applied to him in London.

The American people are proud to welcome your majesty back to the United States, a nation you've come to know very well. After all, you've dined with 10 U.S. presidents. You've helped our nation celebrate its bicentennial in 17 - in 1976.