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

I prefer tongue-tied knowledge to ignorant loquacity.

Time was when they that feared the Lord spake often to one another; I am afraid that now they more often speak one against another.

Style is that which indicates how the writer takes himself and what he is saying. It is the mind skating circles around itself as it moves forward.

I do not, in fact, use many puns. Certainly there are far fewer than people believe. But I suspect the ones I do occasionally use tend to hang around in people’s memories for a while.

Short words are best and the old words when short are best of all.

I don’t know why you use a fancy French word like detente when there’s a good English phrase for it – cold war.

In the last analysis, what we are communicates far more eloquently than anything we say or do.

I think we basically saw that the messaging space is bigger than we’d initially realized, and that the use cases that WhatsApp and Messenger have are more different than we had thought originally.

The happiest conversation is that of which nothing is distinctly remembered, but a general effect of pleasing impression.

No country can act wisely simultaneously in every part of the globe at every moment of time.

We must distinguish between speaking to deceive and being silent to be reserved.

No one gives a damn what Iran thinks on any significant issue. The only reason Iran is at the big boys‘ table is because of their nuclear weapons program.

Action speaks louder than words but not nearly as often.

The people to fear are not those who disagree with you, but those who disagree with you and are too cowardly to let you know.

I meet people overseas that know five languages – that the only language I’m comfortable in is English.

I have to be in tune. All the time. I have to be in tune with my husband, where he is, how he’s feeling. I have to be in tune with where my family is.

We build too many walls and not enough bridges.

If you want to talk about something new, you have to make up a new kind of language.

If you’re nice to me I’ll never write anything bad about you.

I’m actually a very honest person, and sometimes I end up like, ‚Man, I said too much.‘ It’s hard for me not to tell the truth when you ask me.

A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on.

I just think you ought to talk straight with your people.

My daughter doesn’t even get my humor. She’s like, ‚Um, no. I don’t get it, Dad. Mmm, no, not that one, Dad.‘

If you don’t like what someone has to say, argue with them.

We want everybody to act like adults, quit playing games, realize that it’s not just my way or the highway.

I just want you to know that, when we talk about war, we’re really talking about peace.

The essence of lying is in deception, not in words.

I do believe that in order to be a successful negotiator that as a diplomat, you have to be able to put yourself into the other person’s shoes. Unless you can understand what is motivating them, you are never going to be able to figure out how to solve a particular problem.

I believe mutual respect for one another and cooperation should be the basis for relationships with foreign nations.

Ever since Newton, we’ve done science by taking things apart to see how they work. What the computer enables us to do is to put things together to see how they work: we’re now synthesized rather than analysed. I find one of the most enthralling aspects of computers is limitless communication.

Letters are among the most significant memorial a person can leave behind them.

The kids never listen to you, especially the youngest ones.

Indeed, we’re strongest when the face of America isn’t only a soldier carrying a gun but also a diplomat negotiating peace, a Peace Corps volunteer bringing clean water to a village, or a relief worker stepping off a cargo plane as floodwaters rise.

A man is more frank and sincere with his emotions than a woman. We girls, I’m afraid, have a tendency to hide our feelings.

If you can’t answer a man’s arguments, all is not lost; you can still call him vile names.

The most important things are the hardest things to say. They are the things you get ashamed of because words diminish your feelings – words shrink things that seem timeless when they are in your head to no more than living size when they are brought out.

No one ever doubts that I mean what I say. The problem is I sometimes say all that I mean.

I had to resign myself, many years ago, that I’m not too articulate when it comes to explaining how I feel about things. But my music does it for me, it really does.

People use irony as a defense mechanism.

We can best help you to prevent war not by repeating your words and following your methods but by finding new words and creating new methods.

When I am getting ready to reason with a man, I spend one-third of my time thinking about myself and what I am going to say and two-thirds about him and what he is going to say.

Effective communication is 20% what you know and 80% how you feel about what you know.

Me is a common sense man. That mean when me explain things, me explain it in a very simple way; that mean if I explain it to a baby, the baby will understand too, you know.

If you ever go to a music session, you’ll notice that the musicians can sit down and start playing right away, and everyone knows what to do. Of course they’re reading it, but the conductor can tweak little things, and you can take that back to directing motion pictures.

We are masters of the unsaid words, but slaves of those we let slip out.

When I was in college I did a lot of stupid things and I don’t want to make an excuse for that. Some of the things that people accuse me of are true, some of them aren’t. There are pranks, IMs.

A lack of transparency results in distrust and a deep sense of insecurity.

Almost everybody will listen to you when you tell your own story.

I promised myself that I would write as well as I can, tell the truth, not to tell everything I know, but to make sure that everything I tell is true, as I understand it. And to use the eloquence which my language affords me.

Saying nothing… sometimes says the most.

I’m terrified of losing my voice.

I can unload my opinion on anybody at anytime.

Extremely religious, legalistic people have a criticism or judgment about everyone and everything. They just have a way of bringing people down with what they say.

We awaken in others the same attitude of mind we hold toward them.

When it comes to developing character strength, inner security and unique personal and interpersonal talents and skills in a child, no institution can or ever will compare with, or effectively substitute for, the home’s potential for positive influence.

Tell them to send everything that can fly.

Ronald Reagan used to alarm his Soviet counterparts by saying that surely they’d both unite against an invasion from Mars.

Children wish fathers looked but with their eyes; fathers that children with their judgment looked; and either may be wrong.

When it comes to gossip, I have to readily admit men are as guilty as women.

A bore is a person who opens his mouth and puts his feats in it.