“Obviously it was happenstance, but it did change my opinion of human nature. I now saw war as a constant, akin to wildfires. They break out unless you work actively to prevent them. Its an atavisti...”

“The administration often used the analogy of planting the seeds of democracy in the Middle East, as if theyd sprout into democratic regimes as nature took its course. Democracy doesnt sprout like a...”

“When I first arrived in Baghdad in January 2003, I thought I would soon rent a house and envisioned myself swimming in the Tigris to cool off after reporting in the city the caliphs called Madinit ...”

“Foreigners who speak Arabic in the Middle East are often assumed to be working for the C.I.A. or Israel's intelligence agency, the Mossad.”

“Kidnapping is always a threat in this life of reporting on men hurting one another because of religion and politics.”

“We know that al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula has some very dangerous, very important leaders who are tied directly to the top leadership of al Qaeda central, including a man who was formerly Osam...”

“Power is not revealed by striking hard or often, but by striking true.”

“As time and space are bent by gravity, so too is truth bent by power.”

“What a curious power words have.”

“War is what happens when language fails.”

“Never think that war, no matter how necessary, nor how justified, is not a crime.”

“The world is full enough of hurts and mischances without wars to multiply them.”

“I was convicted of three misdemeanors of willful failure to file a form.”

“I started off playing sports when I was five years old. I played three or four sports all throughout the year.”

“In the four years since its launch, Kepler has chalked up 122 new and confirmed planets. It's also caught the scent of nearly three thousand additional objects, of which probably 80 percent or more...”