Diplomats operate through deadlock, which is the way by which two sides can test each other's determination. Even if they have egos for it few heads of government have the time to resolve stalemates, their meetings are too short and the demands of protocol too heavy.

Diplomacy: the art of restraining power.

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

The superpowers often behave like two heavily armed blind men feeling their way around a room, each believing himself in mortal peril from the other, whom he assumes to have perfect vision.

There are only two reasons to sit in the back row of an airplane: Either you have diarrhea, or you're anxious to meet people who do.

University politics make me long for the simplicity of the Middle East.

The defining issue is that the government in Taiwan was considered to be the government of all of China, and the authorities in Beijing were not recognized as a government of China. So Taiwan was the residuary for all of China.