It was very difficult to write about my own country, because I have always been the outsider looking in.

As the only woman, I was able to sit with the officers in front, with a glass of vodka in one hand and a cucumber in the other. That's how I went to my first war.

I would like my book to give people insight to the war before and after, but I don't think anyone could read my book and suddenly make up her mind about the war. I want to write for everybody.

We don't grow up in vacuums. We grow up in societies.

I was thinking, there are 5 million people, and I am just one of those 5 million. In the build-up to the war you see children playing in the street, and you think, ah, I'm going to be okay.

We have believing in this innocent feeling of nothing will ever happen to us, because all catastrophes always broad and happening to anyone else.

When I decided to stay in Iraq, I decided to take the fear out of my body and put it into a freezer.

If we can't understand the Afghan family, we can't understand Afghanistan.

If I leave, reality will devour me. Then they will all really be dead.

As a woman, you accept the situation, adapt to it, and do your best, whereas men would choose violence.

If I lose, then I have to accept that my way of writing books is not the way society says it's okay to write.

I think it was Columbia politics, Columbia Records politics that, that, Tom Wilson left [Bob Dylan] after "Like A Rolling Stone".

Microsoft has changed the way people think about computers.

I realized that there wasn't accessible, user-friendly content out there that really empowered people to find a way into the green movement.

If someone doesn't hate what you're doing - you're not doing very well.

Now are the woods all black, But still the sky is blue.

I'm also very proud to be a part of a trilogy of films that, if they do nothing else, allow people to check their problems at the door, sit down and have a good time.

When we're threatened, it's very easy to appeal to our basic natures.

A true healer helps you to remember and reconnect consciously with your inner light.

A Dark Night is a mental and emotional state of despair that arises when something is so painful that it blots out all other considerations and makes carrying on as usual out of the question.

The problem is, your ego sometimes tells you that you can do many things. But sometimes it's best to stay focused and be honest with yourself.