“A country that demands moral perfection in its foreign policy will achieve neither perfection nor security”

“Military men are just dumb, stupid animals to be used as pawns in foreign policy.”

“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. Each side should know that frequently uncertainty, compromise, and incoherence are the essence of policymaking. Yet each tends to ascribe to the other a consistency, foresight, and coherence that its own experience belies. Of course, over time, even two armed blind men can do enormous damage to each other, not to speak of the room.”

“The nice thing about being a celebrity is that if you bore people they think it's their fault.”

“In Washington...the appearance of power is therefore almost as important as the reality of it. In fact, the appearance is frequently its essential reality”

“If Tehran insists on combining the Persian imperial tradition with contemporary Islamic fervor, then a collision with America — and, indeed, with its negotiating partners of the Six — is unavoidable. Iran simply cannot be permitted to fulfill a dream of imperial rule in a region of such importance to the rest of the world.”

“Blessed are the people whose leaders can look destiny in the eye without flinching but also without attempting to play God”