Politics is compromise.

What my future will not be is active politics in the Liberal Democrat party.

I am here because I think it was a terrible sin of the west to allow those years of war.

We who came here saw what was happening. This was far more than a war in a faraway place. This was a moral imperative, a terrible vision of the future.

We have invented a new human right here - the right to return home after a war.

It was a superb agreement to end a war, but a very bad agreement to make a state. From now on, we have to part company with Dayton and try to build a modern democratic state, for which I have tried to lay the foundations.

We have to make their livelihoods viable, get them the proper prices for their produce, try and make them stay rather than sell their property and leave again.

It's not my job to be popular. I'm goal-driven; my job is to get results.

Maybe it's legitimate criticism, though it can be hurtful. Maybe I haven't paid sufficient attention to the people with whom I would have a natural affinity as a liberal, and they feel let down by that.

The generous way of putting it is that we were not ready for this. The less generous way is to say: How was it possible to return to the politics of appeasement of the 1930s?

Politics is compromise.

It would be a foolish high representative who worked that way.

I love this country, I love these people, though I can't say I love their politicians. People are always nicer than politicians, but here, you can mark that difference up a hundredfold.

People do not want politicians they know to be corrupt.

I was told there would be riots in the streets, but there were no riots.

My second job has been to try to use my power to create institutions of a modern state that could enter the European Union, and there was very little time. The door was closing, and I wanted to get Bosnia through before it shut.

I've had much nastier things said about me in the British press than in the Bosnian press.

Bosnia is under my skin. It's the place you cannot leave behind. I was obsessed by the nightmare of it all; there was this sense of guilt, and an anger that has become something much deeper over these last years.

I can establish the expectation of retributive justice. Have we done that? No.

Politics is about putting yourself in a state of grace.

It works both ways: there are victims of tragedy who come to me who have experienced grief of such magnitude that they cannot reconcile. Likewise, I cannot change the mentality of those who committed the crimes or the fools who followed them.

The greatest failure is that although we have created institutions, we have not created a civil society.

I don't think Bosnia is ready for reconciliation, but I do think it is ready for truth.

I am formally accountable to the steering board of the PIC, and I meet with nine ambassadors from the PIC every week. I have to have the capitals' broad agreement with what I do.

I can create institutions, but I can't rewrite the chips in people's heads.

We have invented a new human right here the right to return home after a war.

A couple of guys won Academy Awards for the things that I turned down. Today, after coming to terms with everything, after being in therapy for a long time-there are areas where I will compromise.

The 'morality of compromise' sounds contradictory. Compromise is usually a sign of weakness, or an admission of defeat. Strong men don't compromise, it is said, and principles should never be compromised.

To say that an artist sells out means that an artist is making a conscious choice to compromise his music, to to weaken his music for the sake of commercial gain.

I've been lucky enough to have had the luxury of being able to make the picture I've wanted to make each time on my own terms and without compromise.

Every day there is a compromise. Living with somebody requires a lot of understanding. But I love being married. I really love it.

Rather, it is through conciliation and compromise that we are building a fair Iraq, a just state for all its peoples.

But transitions from the politics of violence to democratic compromise are always messy.

Feeling is the consciousness of the resulting conditions - of success, failure, equilibrium, compromise or balance, in this continuous rivalry of ideas.

And what it depends on, of course, is whether the story itself is worth the ethical compromise it requires and whether the competition is onto the story.

We are going to finish this picture just the way I want it... because you cannot compromise an artist's vision.

A lean compromise is better than a fat lawsuit.

The Senate needs 60 votes to pass anything. They have to compromise with liberal Democrats to spend more money. Even though arguably we have control of the Senate, we really don't.

A compromise is the art of dividing a cake in such a way that everyone believes he has the biggest piece.

If you find yourself in a movie that you have questions about, it's not a compromise to your integrity.

Ultimately, there is no compromise. Westerners will either retain their civilization, including the right to insult and blaspheme, or not.

If you set out to be liked, you would be prepared to compromise on anything at any time, and you would achieve nothing.

The government can still conduct clandestine searches of innocent people's private information such as library, medical, and financial records. This is wrong and should have been addressed in a true compromise.

Don't compromise even if it hurts to be yourself.

No, you're not allowed to be bossy when you're married. You have to learn compromise, and compassion and patience.

If you limit your choices only to what seems possible or reasonable, you disconnect yourself from what you truly want, and all that is left is compromise.

You may either win your peace or buy it: win it, by resistance to evil; buy it, by compromise with evil.

The message that President Obama delivered in his speech at Notre Dame was: morality is immoral. Pro-life is the extremist position, not a moral position. Yet we should compromise and work to reduce abortions. Where's the compromise between life and death - and why work to reduce the number of them occurring if there's nothing wrong with them?

The swift wind of compromise is a lot more devastating than the sudden jolt of misfortune.