Diplomatic Engagements Quotes

As PM, you have got to do everything from chairing the Cabinet to ceremonial things. You have also got to do the nitty gritty. I do get stuck into the detail.

You see, before I became prime minister, the Australian prime minister only attended ever two meetings in the world: the British Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting and the South Pacific Forum.

A foreign minister, I will maintain it, can never be a good man of business if he is not an agreeable man of pleasure too. Half his business is done by the help of his pleasures: his views are carried on, and perhaps best, and most unsuspectedly, at balls, suppers, assemblies, and parties of pleasure; by intrigues with women, and connections insensibly formed with men, at those unguarded hours of amusement.

I have defended the interests of France at the G8 in Washington; afterwards I was at Chicago to announce the withdrawal of French troops from Afghanistan; I have participated in two European summits, so I have fully respected the engagements I made to the French.

Another foreign-policy triumph for Reagan was his 1984 visit to China, where he met for more than three hours with Mao Zedong before realizing that Mao was dead.

We've had great conversations with the United Kingdom and meetings, Israel, Mexico, Japan, China and Canada, really, really productive conversations.

I've been going around the world; I've been to China, I sang at the General Assembly, the Security Council.

My early years abroad were spent mainly upon the European Continent, and public duties since have led me to make prolonged stays in various Continental states France, Germany, the Netherlands, Italy, Russia where the study of Continental statesmen has been almost forced upon me.