“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 ...”

“In 2009, Hamas was relatively new to power. It had won elections just three years earlier and was flexing its newfound strength via a war with its old enemy, Israel, which it officially wants destr...”

“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.”

“In politics, the pen is at its heaviest because it is weighed down by the collective responsibility it holds towards its people and their future in the eyes of the world.”

“Pender laughed. "Verify? In this day and age? Who cares about verifying anything? It's all about the speed. Who gets there first defines the truth. You know that as well as any man living.”

“It is the same in all wars; the soldiers do the fighting, the journalists do the shouting, and no true patriot ever gets near a front-line trench, except on the briefest of propaganda-tours.”

“Even in times of trauma, we try to maintain a sense of normality until we no longer can. That, my friends, is called surviving. Not healing. We never become whole again ... we are survivors. If you...”

“Everyone around me was allowed, permitted to fall apart; yet I had to think twice. I couldn't bear to take another dip into an ocean of solitude for another taste of ostracization. I felt I would die.”

“You've been so used to fighting Wars with a gun in your hand that you forget to put it down. Not every fight requires a weapon of some kind, and not everything is a fight.”