Embassy Quotes

On one occasion, Daniel Day-Lewis, Jeremy Irons and myself were due to appear at the Sarajevo film festival and were turned off a UN plane on orders from Geneva. We had to get local journalists to transport the films in for us. I tell you this only to demonstrate that festivals can be a lifeline. But, after all the difficulties I'd had in getting there, in 1996 I found myself being flown in on a four-seater RAF plane as an official guest, endorsed by the British Embassy. Ironically, the film I was to present was Mission: Impossible. ~ Vanessa Redgrave

Linnaeus's last lesson, of which he himself was unaware, was that professorships kill philosophers. Oh, I'm vain enough to want my burgeoning Flora Japonica to be published one day
as a votive offering to human knowledge
but a seat at Uppsala, or Leiden, or Cambridge, holds no allure. My heart is the East's in this lifetime. This is my third year in Nagasaki, and I have work enough for another three, or six. During the court embassy I can see landscapes no European botanist ever saw. My seminarians are keen young men
with one young woman
and visiting scholars bring me specimens from all over the empire. ~ David Mitchell

The recent controversy over the portrayal of Ken Taylor and his embassy staff in the movie 'Argo' brought home to me the great responsibility we writers have when telling stories that involve real people. ~ Susanna Kearsley

Inej nodded. "I gave your letter to the guard at the door, and it did the trick. They brought me directly to two members of the Triumvirate."
"Who did you meet with?" said Kaz.
"Genya Safin and Zoya Nazyalensky."
Wylan sat forward. "The Tailor? She's at the embassy?"
Kaz raised a brow. "What an interesting fact to forget to mention, Nina."
"It wasn't relevant at the time."
"Of course it's relevant!" Wylan said angrily.
Jesper was a little surprised. Wylan hadn't seemed to mind wearing Kuwei's features at first. He'd almost seemed to welcome the distance it gave him from his father. But that had been before they'd gone to Saint Hilde. And before Jesper had kissed Kuwei. ~ Leigh Bardugo

I was considered the luckiest of all the female gypsies since I landed the job as social secretary to Ambassador and Mrs. David Bruce at the American Embassy. ~ Letitia Baldrige

Our defense of universal human rights is one of America's greatest sources of strength. The image of Chen, blind and injured, seeking through that dangerous night for the one place he knew stood for freedom and opportunity - the embassy of the United States - reminds us of our responsibility to make sure our country remains the beacon for dissidents and dreamers all over the world. ~ Hillary Rodham Clinton

Hope is a delicate thing.
A dangerous thing. ~ Ally Carter

It is our belief that the Russians are the worst propagandists, the worst public relations people, in the world. Let us take the example of the foreign correspondents. Usually a newspaperman goes to Moscow full of good will and a desire to understand what he sees. He promptly finds himself inhibited and not able to do the work of a newspaperman. Gradually he begins to turn in mood, and gradually he begins to hate the system, not as a system, but simply because it keeps him from doing his work. There is no quicker way of turning a man against anything. And this newspaperman usually ends up nervous and mean, because he has not been able to accomplish what he was sent to do. A man who is unable to function in his job usually detests the cause of his failure to function. The Embassy people and the correspondents feel alone, feel cut off; they are island people in the midst of Russia, and it is no wonder that they become lonely and bitter. ~ John Steinbeck

They could not help loving anything that made them laugh. The Lisbon earthquake was "embarrassing to the physicists and humiliating to theologians" (Barbier). It robbed Voltaire of his optimism. In the huge waves which engulfed the town, in the chasms which opened underneath it, in volcanic flames which raged for days in the outskirts, some 50,000 people perished. But to the courtiers of Louis XV it was an enormous joke. M. de Baschi, Madame de Pompadour's brother-in-law, was French Ambassador there at the time. He saw the Spanish Ambassador killed by the arms of Spain, which toppled onto his head from the portico of his embassy; Baschi then dashed into the house and rescued his colleague's little boy whom he took, with his own family, to the country. When he got back to Versailles he kept the whole Court in roars of laughter for a week with his account of it all. "Have you heard Baschi on the earthquake? ~ Nancy Mitford

[Dean Martin] is an absolute, unqualified drunk. And if we ever develop an Olympic drinking team, he's gonna be the coach ... Dean Martin has been stoned more often than the United States embassies. ~ Frank Sinatra

Mom's Israeli. Dad's Brazilian. What can I say? I am Embassy Row personified. You really lucked out in the best friend department ~ Ally Carter

I've been back less than two weeks, and already I've turned the sweetest girl on Embassy Row into a thief and a conspiracy theorist. Even for me, it is an impressively quick act of corruption. ~ Ally Carter

The US Embassy in Paris is a compact complex on Avenue Gabriel, just north of the Champs-Élysées. The three- acre compound is considered US soil, meaning all those to stand on it are subject to the same laws and protections as they would encounter standing in the United States. ~ Dan Brown

Embassy Row in Washington, D.C., the summer I turned ~ Robert Fulghum

The church, we're to meet in the church. Do try to wipe that blood off your mail, Uhtred. We're an embassy! ~ Bernard Cornwell

The Afghans and their international guards made a show of clearing a patch of poppies right outside the base gate--a patch they had been saving to show off for the media and top Kabul luminaries, a patch with limited risk of attack. A man from the U.S. embassy, thrilled to be outside, wore a patch on his flak vest: AMERICA, FUCK YEAH, it said, quoting the movie Team America. Was there a better description for what we were trying to do here? If so, I had yet to hear it. ~ Kim Barker

Cocktail hour at the embassy consisted of lots of charming men and women in suits and LBDs drinking Buck's Fizz and being friendly to one another, and so what if half of them had gill slits and dorsal fins under the tailoring, and the embassy smelled of seaweed because it was on an officially derelict oil rig in the middle of the North Sea, and the Other Side has the technical capability to exterminate every human being within two hundred kilometers of a coastline if they think we've violated the Benthic Treaty? ~ Charles Stross

HOW THE SHIP WAS ABANDONED THE JOLLY-BOAT'S LAST TRIP END OF THE FIRST DAY'S FIGHTING THE GARRISON IN THE STOCKADE SILVER'S EMBASSY THE ATTACK MY SEA ADVENTURE HOW MY SEA ADVENTURE BEGAN THE EBB-TIDE RUNS THE CRUISE OF THE CORACLE I STRIKE THE JOLLY ROGER ISRAEL HANDS "PIECES OF EIGHT" CAPTAIN SILVER IN THE ENEMY'S CAMP THE BLACK SPOT AGAIN ON PAROLE FLINT'S POINTER THE VOICE AMONG THE TREES THE FALL OF A CHIEFTAIN AND LAST TREASURE ~ Robert Louis Stevenson

When we left it, the city was still smoldering. Otherwise it was a perfect spring morning. White hyacinths gasped in the embassy lawn. The sky was September-blue and the pigeons went on pecking at bits of bread scattered by the bombed bakery. Broken baguettes. Crushed croissants. Gutted cars. A carousel spinning its blackened horses. He said the shadow of missiles growing larger on the sidewalk looked like god playing an air piano above us. ~ Ocean Vuong

In the best of all worlds everyone in the Embassy is doing something to assist U.S. exports. ~ Lawrence Eagleburger

But guilt isn't smart. It isn't logical. It doesn't only live in the places it belongs. ~ Ally Carter

But that's the thing about being the girl who's spent years convincing the world she's not afraid of anything: At some point, someone is going to find out you're afraid of everything. ~ Ally Carter

Why should we care about the coup? First, because we depend on Yemen's government to support our drone war against another local menace, al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP). It's not clear if we can even maintain our embassy in Yemen, let alone conduct operations against AQAP. And second, because growing Iranian hegemony is a mortal threat to our allies and interests in the entire Middle East. ~ Charles Krauthammer

Hanging a banner from the front of the Bureau of Indian Affairs building that proclaimed it to be the "Native American Embassy," hundreds of protesters hailing from seventy-five Indigenous nations entered the building to sit in. BIA personnel, at the time largely non-Indigenous, fled, and the capitol police chain-locked the doors announcing that the Indigenous protesters were illegally occupying the building. The protesters stayed for six days, enough time for them to read damning federal documents that revealed gross mismanagement of the federal trust responsibility, which they boxed up and took with them. The Trail of Broken Treaties solidified Indigenous alliances, and the "20-Point Position Paper,"14 the work mainly of Hank Adams, provided a template for the affinity of hundreds of Native organizations. Five years later, in 1977, the document would be presented to the United Nations, forming the basis for the 2007 UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. ~ Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz

The monster is me. ~ Ally Carter

This is the most terrible thing that can happen in a friendly country if Thai people have to escape from the backdoor of an embassy. ~ Thaksin Shinawatra

During Uthman's caliphate, a Muslim embassy was sent to China to establish diplomatic relations ~ Firas Alkhateeb

Often beneath the wave, wide from this ledge
The dice of drowned men's bones he saw bequeath
An embassy. Their numbers as he watched,
Beat on the dusty shore and were obscured.

And wrecks passed without sound of bells,
The calyx of death's bounty giving back
A scattered chapter, livid hieroglyph,
The portent wound in corridors of shells.

Then in the circuit calm of one vast coil,
Its lashings charmed and malice reconciled,
Frosted eyes there were that lifted altars;
And silent answers crept across the stars.

Compass, quadrant and sextant contrive
No farther tides ... High in the azure steeps
Monody shall not wake the mariner.
This fabulous shadow only the sea keeps. ~ Hart Crane

Every girl thinks about growing up in a palace. Few ever ponder living in a cage. ~ Ally Carter

I believe that American engagement, through our embassy, our businesses, and most of all through our people, is the best way to advance our interests and support for democracy and human rights. ~ Chris Christie

The embassy in Cairo put out a statement after their grounds had been breached ... An apology for America's values is never the right course ... The statement that came from the administration was - was a statement which is akin to apology and I think was a - a severe miscalculation. ~ Mitt Romney

Arranging an official dinner in an embassy is a little like writing a script for a play. The prolog is the guest list, often the most difficult part of the whole creative operation. ~ Letitia Baldrige

Harun AlRashid known for his wealth & diplomatic relations, sent an embassy to France that included an elephant & a water clock ~ Firas Alkhateeb

Tunisian liberals say that the U.S. Embassy in Tunis is unengaged with their efforts to make sure the Tunisian model remains one of expanding freedom. ~ Elliott Abrams

Give me this gift, an understanding heart
That I may comfort souls along the way.
On wings of mercy, let my words convey
Tidings that heal and bless when tear drops start.
May this gift be of me so much a part
That eloquence will brighten every day.
(The inner knowing of just what to say
And when to say it is a master art.)
In all my striving let my heart discern
When silence is the greater need,
When just to listen while a soul is freed
Of pent-up yearnings fosters hope's return.
Words can best fill their embassy of peace
After the burdened heart has found release. ~ Mirla Greenwood Thayne

I have one anecdote about the FBI breaking into an embassy in Washington, and under Hoover, they had this sort of ruse whereby they didn't want to recommend a break-in that might be a big flap and cause all kinds of problems. ~ Ronald Kessler

Fundamentalist groups like Christian Embassy have infiltrated the very top of the U.S. military and gained positions of influence in the Pentagon. ~ Darrel Ray

I was born in the city's general hospital on November 15, 1930, and we lived at 31 Amherst Avenue in the western suburbs. It was a magical place. There were receptions at the French Club, race meetings at the Shanghai Racecourse, and various patriotic gatherings at the British Embassy on the Bund, the city's glamorous waterfront area. ~ J.G. Ballard

In London it had seemed impossible to travel without the proper evening clothes. One could see an invitation arriving for an Embassy ball or something. But on the other side of Europe with the first faint tinges of faraway places becoming apparent and exciting, to say nothing of vanishing roads and extra weight, Embassy balls held less significance. ~ Robert Edison Fulton Jr.

And here, in thought, to thee-
In thought that can alone,
Ascend thy empire and so be
A partner of thy throne,
By winged Fantasy,
My embassy is given,
Till secrecy shall knowledge be
In the environs of Heaven. ~ Edgar Allan Poe

When I was a kid, while touring East Berlin - back when there was an East Berlin - I got my left foot stuck in an escalator in Alexanderplatz. A few hours later, thanks to blowtorches and chainsaws and East German soldiers and the U.S. Embassy, my foot was released, and I along with it. ~ Kevin Bleyer

Friends help each other when they are ... you know ... going up international hit men and stuff. ~ Ally Carter

I was scarcely aware of the angry hands scratching and pulling at me from all directions. Instead, I closed my eyes and wished silently for death to free me. ~ Kien Nguyen

The U.S. is not constructing a palatial embassy, by far the largest in the world and virtually a separate city within Baghdad, and pouring money into military bases, with the intention of leaving Iraq to Iraqis. ~ Noam Chomsky

It was a roadblock, manned by an officer and several other soldiers.
Sivaram and the trishaw driver were ordered out of the vehicle, and I was
told to stay where I was. The soldiers held their rifl es aimed and ready as the
offi cer interrogated the trishaw driver, a Muslim man, who fumbled out his
documents. He was soon allowed to get back in his trishaw. When it was
Sivaram's turn, he just stood there, completely quiet. After several questions,
the offi cer started screaming at him. Then he ordered his soldiers to take him,
and gestured for the trishaw driver to go on. Without thinking, I jumped out
of the trishaw. I was a visiting professor at Colombo University and he was one
of my students, I lied, approaching them. I threatened to call the American
Embassy if they arrested my 'student.' The offi cer yelled, in English, for me to
come no closer, to get back in the trishaw. Then he barked an order, and one
of the soldiers lifted his rifl e and aimed it directly at my head. I kept babbling
on about the embassy, but even I did not hear myself. All I could see was that
hole at the end of the rifl e and, above it, the sweaty face and very frightened
eyes of the soldier. He looked very young, maybe 18. I thought, I'm going to
die right now. And then we grew very quiet.
The offi cer barked another order, the soldier lowered his gun, and the
other soldiers pushed Sivaram bac ~ Mark P. Whitaker

A discontented young fellow, filled with self pride; he certainly should have considered it an honor to be sent on so respectable an embassy as he was. ~ Zebulon Pike

A brother's sympathy is more precious than an angel's embassy. ~ Charles Haddon Spurgeon

The attack on the British embassy in Tehran came just days after the Iranian 'parliament' voted to expel the British ambassador, and therefore reeks of official complicity. ~ Elliott Abrams

It's not as if it'd taste any different under all that curry," said Burleigh. "I was at a dinner in their embassy once, and do you know what they made me eat? It was a sheep's - ~ Terry Pratchett

Why would our president close the embassy to the Vatican? Hopefully, it is not retribution for Catholic organizations opposing Obamacare. ~ Jeb Bush

Honor is overrated. ~ Ally Carter

That was Embassy Pictures, they went bankrupt shortly after This is Spinal Tap came out. ~ Harry Shearer

The technique of beaming a ray on to window glass and reading from the vibrations the conversation going on inside had been used against the American embassy in Moscow in the Cold War and required the reconstruction of the entire building. ~ Frederick Forsyth

Rather than inserting more Marines and engineers to harden and defend the American Embassy - thus sending an unequivocal message that such an assault against American sovereign territory in the heart of Tehran would never be tolerated again - the bureaucrats back at the White House and State Department had panicked. They'd reduced the embassy's staff from nearly a thousand to barely sixty. The Pentagon had shown a similar lack of resolve. The number of U.S. military forces in-country had been drawn down from about ten thousand active-duty troops to almost none. The only reason Charlie had been sent in - especially as green as he was - was because he happened to be one of the few men in the entire U.S. diplomatic corps who was actually fluent in Farsi. None of the three CIA guys on site even spoke the language. ~ Joel C. Rosenberg

What if the invasion forces will not leave our lands? What if the U.S. forces and others stay in our beloved lands? What if their companies and embassy headquarters will continue to exist with the American flags hoisted on them? Will you be silent? Will you overlook this? ~ Muqtada Al Sadr

Even though the numbers are down with respect to favorability ratings, at every embassy and consular office tomorrow morning that we have, people will be lined up, and they'll all say the same thing, "We want to go to America." So we're still the leader of the world that wants to be free. We are still the inspiration of the rest of the world. And we can come back. ~ Colin Powell

David Bruce, I think, is one of the outstanding persons for whom I've ever worked. He had a sense of balance. He was interested in everything that went on in the Embassy. He delegated authority, but at the same time when you needed the Ambassador's help on anything, you could go to him, and he would immediately respond. ~ Hermann Eilts

I dare say being a receptionist at the American Embassy in Grosvenor Square gets you a reasonable salary and all the nylon stockings you can eat, ~ Hugh Laurie

I work a seventeen hour day, and I'm personally responsible for 108 staff members in the embassy. ~ Shirley Temple

I think that ISIS is a threat to our embassy, to our consulate, as well as potentially to the American people. ~ Rand Paul

Only the Muslims defend their beliefs by burning down churches, killing people and destroying embassies. This path will not yield any results. The Muslims must ask themselves what they can do for humankind, before they demand that humankind respect them. ~ Wafa Sultan

The whole notion of an embassy is like 'The Other.' That's what makes Washington interesting. ~ Steven Holl

We inadvertently bombed the Chinese Embassy. But Clinton now is working very hard. He has sent a letter of apology to the Chinese. And, he's also given them a gift certificate for future nuclear secrets. ~ David Letterman

Anna Chapman was born Anna Vasil'yevna Kushchyenko, in Volgograd, formally Stalingrad, Russia, an important Russian industrial city. During the Battle of Stalingrad in World War II, the city became famous for its resistance against the German Army. As a matter of personal history, I had an uncle, by marriage that was killed in this battle. Many historians consider the battle of Stalingrad the largest and bloodiest battle in the history of warfare.
Anna earned her master's degree in economics in Moscow. Her father at the time was employed by the Soviet embassy in Nairobi, Kenya, where he allegedly was a senior KGB agent. After her marriage to Alex Chapman, Anna became a British subject and held a British passport. For a time Alex and Anna lived in London where among other places, she worked for Barclays Bank. In 2009 Anna Chapman left her husband and London, and moved to New York City, living at 20 Exchange Place, in the Wall Street area of downtown Manhattan. In 2009, after a slow start, she enlarged her real-estate business, having as many as 50 employees. Chapman, using her real name worked in the Russian "Illegals Program," a group of sleeper agents, when an undercover FBI agent, in a New York coffee shop, offered to get her a fake passport, which she accepted. On her father's advice she handed the passport over to the NYPD, however it still led to her arrest.
Ten Russian agents including Anna Chapman were arrested, after having been observed for years, on char ~ Hank Bracker

During discussions in his office, Bradlee frequently picked up an undersize sponge-rubber basketball from the table and tossed it toward a hoop attached by suction cups to the picture window. The gesture was indicative both of the editor's short attention span and of a studied informality. There was an alluring combination of aristocrat and commoner about Bradlee: Boston Brahmin, Harvard, the World War II Navy, press attaché at the U.S. Embassy in Paris, police-beat reporter, news-magazine political reporter and Washington bureau chief of Newsweek.

-- Carl Bernstein, Bob Woodward ~ Carl Bernstein

A young officer in my organization, Lyle Ahmad, was a solid, olive-skinned former marine with a trim crew cut. He was a clone, a close protection officer. I had met Ahmad when he was a marine guarding the U.S. embassy in Warsaw and I was an agent with the State Department's protection and investigation arm, Diplomatic Security, where I worked before joining my present outfit. He was quiet and sharp and boasted impressive multiple-language skills. He was a rising star in our organization. Driving ~ Jeffery Deaver

The Church acts as a sort of embassy for the government of the King. It is an outpost of the Kingdom of God surrounded by the kingdom of darkness. Just as an embassy is meant to showcase the life of a nation to the surrounding people, so the Church is meant to manifest the life of the Kingdom of God to the people around it. ~ Kevin DeYoung

There's no embassy for the United States in Iran. So, Iranians process those in other countries. ~ Judy Woodruff

Extraterrestrial contact is a real phenomenon. The Vatican is receiving much information about extraterrestrials and their contacts with humans from its Nuncios (embassies) in various countries, such as Mexico, Chile and Venezuela. ~ Corrado Balducci

Each American embassy comes with two permanent features - a giant anti-American demonstration and a giant line for American visas. Most demonstrators spend half their time burning Old Glory and the other half waiting for green cards. ~ P. J. O'Rourke

Ok," he says. "First lesson."
Noah broadens his stance, taking his place firmly on the embassy side of the threshold. "in the United States," he says. Then, with both feet, he leaps on to the sidewalk. "Out of the United States." Quickly, he jumps back toward me. "In the United States." Another jump across the threshold. "Out of the United States. In. Out. In
"
"Is this the part where I hit you? ~ Ally Carter

The couple in the Skyline came to mind. Why did I have this fixation on them? Well, what else did I have to think about? By now, the two of them might be snoozing away in bed, or maybe pushing into commuter trains. They could be flat character sketches for a TV treatment: Japanese woman marries Frenchman while studying abroad; husband has traffic accident and becomes paraplegic. Woman tires of life in Paris, leaves husband, and returns to Tokyo, where she works in Belgian or Swiss embassy. Silver bracelets, a memento from her husband. Cut to beach scene in Nice: woman with the bracelets on left wrist. Woman takes bath, makes love, silver bracelets always on left wrist. Cut: enter Japanese man, veteran of student occupation of Yasuda Hall, wearing tinted glasses like lead in Ashes and Diamonds. A top TV director, he is haunted by dreams of tear gas, by memories of his wife who slit her wrist five years earlier. Cut (for what it's worth, this script has a lot of jump cuts): he sees the bracelets on woman's left wrist, flashes back to wife's bloodied wrist. So he asks woman: could she switch bracelets to her right wrist?

"I refuse," she says. "I wear my bracelets on my left wrist. ~ Haruki Murakami

In the British embassy in Afghanistan in 2008, an embassy of 350 people, there were only three people who could speak Dari, the main language of Afghanistan, at a decent level. And there was not a single Pashto speaker. ~ Rory Stewart

Diplomacy in a sense is the opposite of writing. You have to disperse yourself so much: the lady who comes in crying because she's had a fight with the secretary; exports and imports; students in trouble; thumbtacks for the embassy. ~ Carlos Fuentes

The minister expressed appreciation for the offer, and our embassy in Uzbekistan will be following up in more detail with them ~ Richard Boucher

[P]erhaps the burrows in which our lives were spent really were dark and dirty, and perhaps we ourselves were well suited to these burrows, but in the blue sky above our heads, up among the thinly scattered stars, there were special, artificial points of gleaming light, creeping unhurriedly through the constellations, points created here out of steel, semiconductors, and electricity, and now flying through space. And every one of us, even the blue-faced alcoholic we had passed on the way here, huddling like a toad in a snowdrift, even Mitiok's brother, and of course Mitiok and I - we all had our own little embassy up there in the cold pure blueness. ~ Victor Pelevin

The Summer Garden, perhaps the most beautiful garden in Petersburg, had the particular advantage of being almost next to the Embassy. Originally laid out by Leblond, in the manner of Versailles, its most remarkable feature was a series of fountains, with statuary depicting scenes from Aesop's Fables. ~ Alan Sheridan

Huge numbers of embassy cables are labeled 'unclassified' or 'limited official use' and deal with mundane matters. ~ Elliott Abrams

I visited the compound of the American embassy and talked to the police and the people and encouraged them, and I told them to take the proper measure and apply the law against the people who are attacking them and attacking the buildings. ~ Hesham Qandil

As humourless a lump of dough as ever held a torchlight vigil outside the South African Embassy or stuck an AIDS awareness ribbon on an unwilling first-nighter. ~ Stephen Fry

The question really is how do we get Embassy Officers into the minds of the American business community. That is a much more difficult task than understanding a statistical matrix. ~ Lawrence Eagleburger