By the second sentence of a pitch, the entirety of the story should be explained.

A woman I loved [Andi Parhamovich] was killed in Baghdad in January 2007 – al-Qaeda in Iraq took credit for it … The memorial service with me crying over an empty coffin.

General McChrystal wanted to be on the cover of Rolling Stone.

I have a deep-seated skepticism about the morality of violence. Violence is almost always morally corrosive.

I want to be the greatest investigative reporter of my generation.

I think when war becomes your life, I think its very difficult to have the proper perspective to be able to create a fully balanced policy.

Look, I went into journalism to do journalism, not advertising.

When writing for a mass audience, put a fact in every sentence.

If the thumbnail version of the Iraq war was that Bush lied about WMD, the thumbnail version of Obama's war in Afghanistan is that the generals pushed him into a war he didn't want to fight.

The fact is, psychiatric help is not widely available to CIA agents - and as in the military, there is a stigma attached to admitting post-traumatic stress.

Despite failing to get bin Laden, the U.S. government and media portrayed the early Afghanistan war as a great victory.

It was no good to look back, to apologize for what had happened, or to wonder what could have been different.

Once upon a time Karen saw somebody nobody else could see. She thought to ask an old man: who were you? Once upon a time I thought to dream of medicine. Now I dream of medicine by the sea.

To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.

In worship, God imparts himself to us.

If inflation continues to soar, you're going to have to work like a dog just to live like one

I never notice what is said about me. I am credited with things I have never done, and abused for them. It would be idle to attempt to contradict newspaper talk and street rumors.

the little street Into its gloom retires, secluded and shy.

I went to the movies with my little Peggy Sue, I had a dip there in my lip just like I always do.

Goodness . . . You got to make it out of badness . . . Because there isn't anything else to make it out of.

A happy ending cannot come in the middle of the story