Meetings should be great — they’re opportunities for a group of people sitting together around a table to directly communicate. That should be a good thing. And it is, but only if treated as a rare delicacy.

The greater the emotional content in the conversation, the more it needs to happen face-to-face.

I get the impression that an exchange of visits between leaders of nations is extremely useful for strengthening the bonds of friendship, because mutual visits bring mutual understanding. It is mutual understanding and mutual esteem that are absolute requisites for the realisation of everlasting peace in the world.

I believe that, first and foremost, we (must) hold a meeting with (Trump), and that is important. And that is, by the way, something that everyone in Europe wants. [Then,] we should move on to some kind of format of conversation with Russians. And I would like to see the United States of America, Ukraine, and the Russians at the negotiating table. ... And, to be honest, a European Union voice should also be there. I think it would be fair, effective. But how will it turn out I don't know.

An excess of meetings indicates that jobs have not been defined clearly, have not been structured big enough, have not been made truly responsible. Also the need for meetings indicates that the decisions and relations analyses either have not been made at all or have not been applied. The rule should be to minimize the need for people to get together to accomplish anything.

Finally, it is important to move from an unproductive sanctions regime to direct dialogue between the leaders of the key global powers who are shaping the future of the world. In this regard, it is necessary to discuss ways out of the current geopolitical crisis between the representatives of the United States, China, Russia and the European Union. I am negotiating with the leaders of these states. It is necessary to build this work from a dialogue of key think tanks with a further transition to the ministerial and higher levels.

Men meet together for many reasons in the course of business. They need to instruct or persuade each other. They must agree on a course of action. They find thinking in public more productive or less painful than thinking in private. But there are at least as many reasons for meetings to transact no business. Meetings are held because men seek companionship or, at a minimum, wish to escape the tedium of solitary duties. They yearn for the prestige which accrues to the man who presides over meetings, and this leads them to convoke assemblages over which they can preside. Finally, there is the meeting which is called not because there is business to be done, but because it is necessary to create the impression that business is being done. Such meetings are more than a substitute for action. They are widely regarded as action.

Differences and problems among countries, hardly avoidable, need to be handled through dialogue and cooperation on the basis of equality and mutual respect. One country’s success does not have to mean another country’s failure, and the world is big enough to accommodate common development and progress of all countries. We need to pursue dialogue and inclusiveness over confrontation and exclusion. We need to build a new type of international relations based on mutual respect, equity, justice and win-win cooperation, and do the best we can to expand the convergence of our interests and achieve the biggest synergy possible.

Really important meetings are planned by the souls long before the bodies see each other.

Generally speaking, these meetings occur when we reach a limit, when we need to die and be reborn emotionally. These meetings are waiting for us, but more often than not, we avoid them happening. If we are desperate, though, if we have nothing to lose, or if we are full of enthusiasm for life, then the unknown reveals itself, and our universe changes direction.

It is essential that our two governments should be on better terms. When we are on good terms I have no anxiety about the West of Europe; what others think is really of small importance. ... You see, we have a sick man on our hands, a very sick man; it would be a great misfortune if he should slip out of them some day before all necessary arrangements are made.

You don't talk to Ahmadinejad. First of all, he’s not the decision maker. When Senator Obama suggests that he would be prepared to meet with him, he says such a meeting first has to be prepared. What he means is that you have to coordinate with your allies - all your allies. Secondly, it means you have to check whether you can put together an agenda for a lower-level meeting. If it becomes clear that you can’t put together such an agenda, then you don’t hold a meeting at a high level - the presidential level - because it’s not going to lead anywhere. But if you can produce something that you know will lead somewhere, then it’s silly not to do that.

Talks between the Russian and US presidents are important not only for our countries, but for the entire world as well. Russia and the United States bear special responsibility for global security, so they need to act in a balanced way and avoid confrontation

The extremely complex situations in various parts of the world and the contradictory currents that exist, with all their attendant risks and uncertainties for overall peace and security, demand a democratic vision of the new international order, which must be built, and abandonment of prejudices in relations between States inherited from the cold-war period. But that is not all. I believe that today we need a vision of the management of international relations in which realism and pragmatism predominate.

Generally, people who think one-on-one meetings are a bad idea have been victims of poorly designed ones. The key to a good one-on-one meeting is the understanding that it is the employee’s meeting rather than the manager’s meeting. This is the free-form meeting for all the pressing issues, brilliant ideas, and chronic frustrations that do not fit neatly into status reports, email, and other less personal and intimate mechanisms