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

People do not want politicians they know to be corrupt.
Paddy Ashdown

Politics is compromise.
Paddy Ashdown

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

Politics is about putting yourself in a state of grace.
Paddy Ashdown

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.
Paddy Ashdown

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.
Paddy Ashdown

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.
Paddy Ashdown