John Kerry Quotes

International negotiation has a nasty tendency to remind its practitioners that the laws of gravity affect them, too, and that international life is a two-way street in which one may have to give in order to get.

We always find that taking a fairly hard-line position means our membership gets the best deal possible.

You have to find a deal where each side can say “we held firm on what matters.”

Anyone who has ever negotiated an agreement knows that in order to get it, you have to be willing to walk away from the table..

Deals really have to do with the overlap of what one side wants and the other side wants, and it's really just the discovery of where that overlap is and how you decide to get there.

Dealing with political things, it's not for me. It makes me crazy. I want to buy, you want to sell. Please make it simple.

That's what happens in the world. You get offered superior contracts.

What is negotiation but the accumulation of small lies leading to advantage?

The art of government is the art of negotiating and compromise.

When you negotiate a deal, you clearly know a lot about the other person.

People typically only believe they're in a negotiation when dollars are involved. And maybe sometimes they're smart enough to see if there's a commodity that you can count being exchanged. And, of course, the commodity that we most commonly exchange is money.

You do not get what you want. You get what you negotiate.

The best way to make a good deal is to have the ability to walk away from it.

Most negotiators are trying to get their way.

The first rule of negotiations is that normally you have to give to get.

In any negotiation you have a wish list but then you proceed from where you can be.

In most negotiations, you can't attribute success or failure in negotiations to one side.

The macro of any negotiation is that the only time you can cut a deal is when both sides are hurting. If either side is - is well and feeling happy, you can't get a deal. Then they go for victory. You need - if they're willing to settle for things the other side can live with, it's because they're hurting a little bit.

You don't get what you deserve, you get what you negotiate.

Negotiating in the classic diplomatic sense assumes parties more anxious to agree than to disagree.

Negotiation means getting the best of your opponent.

We have to find compromises. That's the way it is in Norway.

We're all negotiators.

A compromise is the art of dividing a cake in such a way that everyone believes he has the biggest piece.