I'm convinced there's a small room in the attic of the Foreign Office where future diplomats are taught to stammer.
Interpretation
The quote humorously suggests that future diplomats are trained to speak hesitantly or ineffectively.
Peter Ustinov's quote humorously critiques the nature of diplomacy, implying that diplomats are not only taught the art of negotiation but also how to navigate the complexities of communication with uncertainty. This stammering metaphor highlights the challenges diplomats face in balancing honesty with the need for tact and diplomacy, while also poking fun at the sometimes awkward nature of political discourse.
In practice
In a speech about the challenges of international relations, one might quote Ustinov to illustrate the complexities of diplomatic communication.
Marriage is like a three-speed gearbox - affection, friendship, love. It is not advisable to crash your gears and go right through to love straightaway. You need to ease your way through. The basis of love is respect, and that needs to be learned from affection and friendship.
I imagine hell like this: Italian punctuality, German humour and English wine.
Parents are the bones on which children cut their teeth.
Because they have been in love they have survived everything that life could throw at them, even their own failures.
Corruption is nature's way of restoring our faith in democracy.
World Government is not only possible, it is inevitable; and when it comes, it will appeal to patriotism in its truest sense,in its only sense, the patriotism of humans who love their national heritages so deeply that they wish to preserve them in safety for the common good.
That's the kind of ad I like, facts, facts, facts.
Lady Bracknell. Good afternoon, dear Algernon, I hope you are behaving very well. Algernon. I’m feeling very well, Aunt Augusta. Lady Bracknell. That’s not quite the same thing. In fact the two things rarely go together.
Your offer," he said, "is far too idiotic to be declined.
For your own safety, do not ever tell an astrophysicist, I hope all your stars are twinkling.
A month's salary, deep regret, the telephone number of some foul rehab clinic and my lance was free.
Nowadays we are all of us so hard up that the only pleasant things to pay are compliments. They’re the only things we can pay.
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