Diplomatic Training Quotes

My father had been in the German Diplomatic Service, and although he had been in the United States since World War II and out of diplomacy, it was something that was very much talked about in the family. So when I went to college, it was always my intention to try to get into the Foreign Service.

The real secret about diplomats is that we're trained to say something, when there is nothing to say, and to say nothing when there is something to say.

A strong State Department to me means a corps of career officials who believe that their job is to advocate America's interests and who are trained in effective advocacy, not schooled in accommodation.

I'm convinced there's a small room in the attic of the Foreign Office where future diplomats are taught to stammer

I'd trained to be a diplomat but the state department said I was too liberal. I saw an ad in the New York Times ... a hack Californian editor came to New York to butcher some films and he needed an assistant. For some reason I read it that day and it changed my life. I went to work for him and he was horrible, butchering these masterpieces by Antonioni, Visconti, but I learned enough to know what he was doing wrong.

Mister Dresden is a diplomatically challenged individual. He should be in a shelter for the tactless.

I was going to study at the Sorbonne and become a diplomat. Being a diplomat comes in handy when you are dealing with record companies.