have to. need to.

Here’s a question I posed this morning to Paul Stregevsky:

Q: Do you take issue with the colloquial phrase “have to” (instead of “need to”)?

A: No, I don’t. Technically, they denote the same thing. But as you suggest, they have different connotations.

In most contexts, “have to” sounds a bit less harsh; it connotes, “This is what you gotta do, but hey — don’t blame me. Blame the system.”