Dangerous Quote by Richard Holbrooke

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.

— Richard Holbrooke

There are certain kinds of second-tier confrontations which the U.S. does not need to get directly involved in. However, even in the second tier…

— Richard Holbrooke

I think Americans understand that in Afghanistan, unlike in Iraq and Vietnam, we are fighting an enemy allied with the people who attacked us…

— Richard Holbrooke

You have to test your hypothesis against other theories. Certainty in the face of complex situations is very dangerous.

— Richard Holbrooke

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

— Richard Holbrooke

Diplomacy is like jazz: endless variations on a theme.

— Richard Holbrooke

In diplomacy, as in life itself, one often learns more from failures than from successes. Triumphs will seem, in retrospect, to be foreordained, a…

— Richard Holbrooke

The United States supports the reintegration of people who have fought with the Taliban into Afghan society provided they: one, renounce al Qaeda, two,…

— Richard Holbrooke

World War I was not inevitable, as many historians say. It could have been avoided, and it was a diplomatically botched negotiation.

— Richard Holbrooke

You will never catch up with the spread of AIDS no matter how much money, no matter how many antiretrovirals are put into the…

— Richard Holbrooke

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

— Richard Holbrooke

We should not be surprised that democracy is imperfect even in Western countries.

— Richard Holbrooke