136 Quotes by Richard Holbrooke

It was his ruthlessness and vision that helped to create Bosnia and Herzegovina,

A rough kind of justice has ended his life in a padded cell after his crimes were exposed and witnesses came forward including his own associates and that, I think, had a powerful effect.

A peace deal requires agreements, and you don’t make agreements with your friends, you make agreements with your enemies.

It’s an improvisation on a theme. You know where you want to go, but you don’t know how to get there. It’s not linear.

Bureaucracies have a natural tendency not to cooperate, coordinate or consolidate with each other. They won’t cooperate with each other – unless they are forced to do so by political level authority.

United Nations peacekeepers are going all over the world spreading AIDS even while they’re trying to bring peace. What a supreme irony.

I still believe in the possibility of the United States, with all its will and all its strength, and I don’t just mean military, persevering against any challenge. I still believe in that.

It is essential that the foreign forces who have invaded and occupy large parts of the Congo halt their offensive action.

People hated to take their disagreements to the President; it was as though a failure to agree somehow reflected badly on each of them, and consensus, rather than clarity, was often the highest goal of the process.