Top 180 Chris Voss Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “When the pressure is on, you don’t rise to the occasion – you fall to your highest level of preparation.”

— Chris Voss

Featured in: Preparation Quotes

2. “Tactical empathy is understanding the feelings and mindset of another in the moment and also hearing what is behind those feelings so you increase your influence in all the moments that follow.”

— Chris Voss

3. “Hope is not a strategy.”

— Chris Voss

4. “By repeating back what people say, you trigger this mirroring instinct and your counterpart will inevitably elaborate on what was just said and sustain the process of connecting.”

— Chris Voss

5. “Contrary to popular opinion, listening is not a passive activity. It is the most active thing you can do.”

— Chris Voss

6. “The beauty of empathy is that it doesn’t demand that you agree with the other person’s ideas.”

— Chris Voss

7. “Remember: “Yes” is nothing without “How.” So keep asking “How?”

— Chris Voss

8. “The person across the table is never the problem. The unsolved issue is.”

— Chris Voss

9. “No deal is better than a bad deal.”

— Chris Voss

10. “Remember, never be so sure of what you want that you wouldn’t take something better. Once you’ve got flexibility in the forefront of your mind you come into a negotiation with a winning mindset.”

— Chris Voss

11. “In a tough negotiation, it’s not enough to show the other party that you can deliver the thing they want. To get real leverage, you have to persuade them that they have something concrete to lose if the deal falls through.”

— Chris Voss

12. “No” is not failure. Used strategically it’s an answer that opens the path forward.”

— Chris Voss

13. “Good negotiators, going in, know they have to be ready for possible surprises; great negotiators aim to use their skills to reveal the surprises they are certain exist.”

— Chris Voss

14. “He who has learned to disagree without being disagreeable has discovered the most valuable secret of negotiation.”

— Chris Voss

15. “Conflict brings out truth, creativity, and resolution.”

— Chris Voss

16. “Negotiation serves two distinct, vital life functions – information gathering and behavior influencing – and includes almost any interaction where each party wants something from the other side.”

— Chris Voss

17. “Tactical Empathy. This is listening as a martial art, balancing the subtle behaviors of emotional intelligence and the assertive skills of influence, to gain access to the mind of another person.”

— Chris Voss

18. “This is listening as a martial art, balancing the subtle behaviors of emotional intelligence and the assertive skills of influence, to gain access to the mind of another person. Contrary to popular opinion, listening is not a passive activity. It is the most active thing you can do. Once.”

— Chris Voss

19. “Saying “No” gives the speaker the feeling of safety, security, and control. You use a question that prompts a “No” answer, and your counterpart feels that by turning you down he has proved that he’s in the driver’s seat.”

— Chris Voss

20. “Deadlines are often arbitrary, almost always flexible, and hardly ever trigger the consequences we think – or are told – they will.”

— Chris Voss

21. “Have you given up on this project? The point is that this one-sentence email encapsulates the best of “No”-oriented questions.”

— Chris Voss

22. “Psychotherapy research shows that when individuals feel listened to, they tend to listen to themselves more carefully and to openly evaluate and clarify their own thoughts and feelings.”

— Chris Voss

23. “Who has control in a conversation, the guy listening or the guy talking? The listener, of course. That’s because the talker is revealing information while the listener, if he’s trained well, is directing the conversation toward his own goals. He’s harnessing the talker’s energy for his own ends.”

— Chris Voss

24. “The last rule of labeling is silence. Once you’ve thrown out a label, be quiet and listen.”

— Chris Voss

25. “Don’t be so sure of what you want that you turn down something better.”

— Chris Voss

26. “What does a good babysitter sell, really? It’s not child care exactly, but a relaxed evening. A furnace salesperson? Cozy rooms for family time. A locksmith? A feeling of security. Know the emotional drivers and you can frame the benefits of any deal in language that will resonate. BEND.”

— Chris Voss

27. “Why are you there? What do you want? What do they want? Why?”

— Chris Voss

28. “Instead ask, “Is now a bad time to talk?” Either you get “Yes, it is a bad time” followed by a good time or a request to go away, or you get “No, it’s not” and total focus.”

— Chris Voss

29. “Research shows that the best way to deal with negativity is to observe it, without reaction and without judgment. Then consciously label each negative feeling and replace it with positive, compassionate, and solution-based thoughts. One.”

— Chris Voss

30. “Negotiation as you’ll learn it here is nothing more than communication with results.”

— Chris Voss

31. “There are actually three kinds of “Yes”: Counterfeit, Confirmation, and Commitment.”

— Chris Voss

32. “Negotiate in their world. Persuasion is not about how bright or smooth or forceful you are. It’s about the other party convincing themselves that the solution you want is their own idea. So don’t beat them with logic or brute force. Ask them questions that open paths to your goals. It’s not about you.”

— Chris Voss

33. “If you approach a negotiation thinking the other guy thinks like you, you are wrong. That’s not empathy, that’s a projection.”

— Chris Voss

34. “When we radiate warmth and acceptance, conversations just seem to flow. When we enter a room with a level of comfort and enthusiasm, we attract people toward us.”

— Chris Voss

35. “Every negotiation should start with “No.”

— Chris Voss

36. “Labeling is a way of validating someone’s emotion by acknowledging it.”

— Chris Voss

37. “What are we trying to accomplish? How is that worthwhile? What’s the core issue here? How does that affect things? What’s the biggest challenge you face? How does this fit into what the objective is?”

— Chris Voss

38. “Concentrate on the next step because the rope will lead you to the end as long as all the steps are completed.”

— Chris Voss

39. “Most people in a negotiation are driven by fear or by the desire to avoid pain. Too few are driven by their actual goals.”

— Chris Voss

40. “This manipulation usually takes the form of something like, “We just want what’s fair.”

— Chris Voss

41. “Labeling has a special advantage when your counterpart is tense. Exposing negative thoughts to daylight – “It looks like you don’t want to go back to jail” – makes them seem less frightening.”

— Chris Voss

42. “I switched into my Late-Night, FM DJ Voice: deep, soft, slow, and reassuring.”

— Chris Voss

43. “Saying “No” makes the speaker feel safe, secure, and in control, so trigger it. By saying what they don’t want, your counterpart defines their space and gains the confidence and comfort to listen to you.”

— Chris Voss

44. “The language of negotiation is primarily a language of conversation and rapport: a way of quickly establishing relationships and getting people to talk and think together. Which is why when you think of the greatest negotiators of all time, I’ve got a surprise for you – think Oprah Winfrey.”

— Chris Voss

45. “Kahneman later codified his research in the 2011 bestseller Thinking, Fast and Slow.3 Man, he wrote, has two systems of thought: System 1, our animal mind, is fast, instinctive, and emotional; System 2 is slow, deliberative, and logical. And System 1 is far more influential. In fact, it guides and steers our rational thoughts.”

— Chris Voss

46. “Life is negotiation. The.”

— Chris Voss

47. “Compromise and concession, even to the truth, feels like defeat.”

— Chris Voss

48. “To get real leverage, you have to persuade them that they have something concrete to lose if the deal falls through.”

— Chris Voss

49. “It comes down to the deep and universal human need for autonomy. People need to feel in control.”

— Chris Voss

50. “The person across the table is never the problem. The unsolved issue is. So focus on the issue. This is one of the most basic tactics for avoiding emotional escalations. Our culture demonizes people in movies and politics, which creates the mentality that if we only got rid of the person then everything would be okay. But this dynamic is toxic to any negotiation.”

— Chris Voss