Richard Holbrooke

Diplomacy is like jazz: endless variations on a theme.

The World War II generation believed the United States could do anything - anything... And Vietnam was a shattering experience for everyone.

The United Nations is an indispensable but deeply flawed organization. It is valuable to the United States, and the United States is invaluable to it. We need to reform it.

When you pick up a novel from the bed side table, you put down your own life at the same time and you become another person for the duration.

We define ourselves as intelligent. That's odd, because we're doing the definition - We're creating our own definition and saying, 'We are intelligent!'

You put deadlines on people you really don't want, because that's how you feel about them.