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.
When I woke up this morning my girlfriend asked me, 'Did you sleep good?' I said 'No, I made a few mistakes.'
They do what they do for money - that's all. I don't even know why you're listening to me. I've done commercials for both Coke and Pepsi. Truth is, I can't even taste the difference, but Pepsi paid me last, so there it is.
Humor is everywhere in that there's irony in just about anything a human does.
I'm looking for backing for an unauthorized auto-biography that I am writing. Hopefully, this will sell in such huge numbers that I will be able to sue myself for an extraordinary amount of money and finance the film version in which I will play everybody.
If compliments were food, I'd have starved to death 28 years ago.
Jack Benny was, without a doubt, the bravest comedian I have ever seen work. He wasn't afraid of silence. He would take as long as it took to tell the story.
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