Adam-Troy Castro on Diplomacy

“It occurred to me a long time ago, Mr. Lastogne, that diplomacy has very little to do with making friends.”

“I could only read the delay as a dramatic pause. Theatrics. Or diplomacy; wise men throughout history had already noticed that sometimes there wasn’t much of a difference between the two.”

“His smile was the wholly unpersuasive kind that only a professional diplomat could carve. Damned if there wasn’t some pretense of compassion in his voice, some veneer of fatherly understanding that gave every word out of his mouth an extra, oily sheen.”