If a country denies it has AIDS, that country will inevitably become an even greater victim.
Richard HolbrookeUnited Nations peacekeepers are going all over the world spreading AIDS even while they're trying to bring peace. What a supreme irony.
Richard HolbrookeI think history is continuous. It doesn't begin or end on Pearl Harbor Day or the day Lyndon Johnson withdraws from the presidency or on 9/11. You have to learn from the past but not be imprisoned by it. You need to take counsel of history but never be imprisoned by it.
Richard HolbrookeNothing generates more heat in the government than the question of who is chosen to participate in important meetings.
Richard HolbrookeIn diplomacy, as in life itself, one often learns more from failures than from successes. Triumphs will seem, in retrospect, to be foreordained, a series of brilliant actions and decisions that may in fact have been lucky or inadvertent, whereas failures illuminate paths and pitfalls to be avoided.
Richard Holbrooke