The statesman's duty is to bridge the gap between his nation's experience and his vision.

I don't read books, I write them.

Peace depends ultimately not on political arrangements but on the conscience of mankind.

Intelligence is not all that important in the exercise of power, and is often, in point of fact, useless.

The American formal position has been that we oppose violence by governments against their people. That principle should not be abandoned.

Deng Xiaoping thought of himself as a great revolutionary and a great reformer. He had dismantled the Chinese communist management of the economy. In my next-to-last conversation with him, which was about six months before Tiananmen Square, he said to me that his aim would be the next phase to reduce the Communist Party to philosophical issues. And I said, "What's a philosophical issue?" And he said, "Well, like if we make an alliance with Russia." Given his view of Russia, that was not the likeliest thing that would ever happen.

If we do what is necessary, all the odds are in our favor.