14 Quotes by John Roos

Growing up in California, I obviously knew about our deep connections with the Japanese.

For the sake of future generations, we must continue to work together to realise a world without nuclear weapons.

Japan is a well-educated, technological society. It is a free society, protects intellectual property.

My career was always about working with people, and understanding issues and problems and helping them to solve those issues and problems. How you deal with people - that's what diplomacy is all about. So while I'm not a career diplomat, many of the skills I had seemed to directly translate into the diplomatic arena.

What people often ask me is, 'What are the ingredients of Silicon Valley?' While the answer to that is complex, some of the ingredients I talk about are celebrating entrepreneurship, accepting failure, and embracing a mobile and diverse workforce.

As the U.S. ambassador to Japan, I see this challenge of our younger generations not knowing each other as well as the prior generations.

Direct flights facilitate business. They facilitate business-to-business collaborations. I think anything that makes it easier to bring two areas together is a significant benefit to deepening relations and connections.

Diplomacy is fundamentally working with people, bringing people together to deal with difficult issues.

People talk about Japanese kids as being inward-looking. But my experience is that if you offer them an opportunity, they'll take it.