The negotiations were simultaneously cerebral and physical, abstract and personal, something like a combination of chess and mountain climbing.

The bargaining position of the victor always diminishes with time. Whatever is not exacted during the shock of defeat becomes increasingly difficult to attain later.

Don't burn your bridges until you build better ones.

The fearful person wilts and submits to what they call fate. The fearless negotiates with fate for a compromise.

I don’t buy or sell relationships, so let’s talk business.

After our negotiations were completed, the dome would be imploded and launched toward the nearest black hole, so that none of its atoms would ever contaminate this particular universe again. I thought that last part was overkill.

Peace can only be achieved by a contrite spirit, open communication and tolerance.

The proposition is peace. Not peace through the medium of war; not peace to be hunted through the labyrinth of intricate and endless negotiations; not peace to arise out of universal discord, fomented from principle, in all parts of the empire; not peace to depend on the juridical determination of perplexing questions, or the precise marking the shadowy boundaries of a complex government. It is simple peace, sought in its natural course and in its ordinary haunts. It is peace sought in the spirit of peace, and laid in principles purely pacific.