The real distinction is between those who adapt their purposes to reality and those who seek to mold reality in the light of their purposes.

I am being frank about myself in this book. I tell of my first mistake on page 850.

No, [the U.S.] has made it clear that we consider a peaceful resolution an essential aspect of American foreign policy. This I believe to be a situation understood by China, but again, it is important to not sound too truculent. Taking on a billion-plus Chinese is not an enterprise which one should enter lightly.

Tutelage is a comfortable relationship for the senior partner, but it is demoralizing in the long run. It breeds illusions of omniscience on one side and attitudes of impotent irresponsibility on the other.

People are generally amazed that I would take an interest in any form that would require me to stop talking for three hours.

The emigration of Jews from the Soviet Union is not an objective of American foreign policy. And if they put Jews into gas chambers in the Soviet Union, it is not an American concern. Maybe a humanitarian concern.

Diplomacy: the art of restraining power.