The only thing I've ever regretted is not writing more; not being more honest; not saying how it really is in Baghdad. It's hard to get there sometimes.

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.

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

Pray without ceasing, say all you can to God and lay all your difficulties before him. He’ll take away your tears and make a way where there seems to be none. Wake up and do it!

He put his arms around me. We were both feeling miserable. How were we to know we were happy, even then? Because we at least had that: arms, around.

It was impossible to convince someone to live for his own sake. But he often thought it would be a more effective treatment to make people feel more urgently the necessity of living for others.

Do I catch flak because I'm so much smarter than everyone else? I don't know.

I don't tie my shoes right. I tie them the way you would tie a gift, like a bow.

I just hate to be in one corner. I hate to be put as only a guitar player, or either only as a songwriter, or only as a tap dancer. I like to move around.

To me, I'm still a 24-year-old kid who just happens to have a better paying job than other kids my age.

Do I suffer for my art? Well, I get a lot of flatulence when I'm nervous.

It is when you experience another's suffering as your own that your human values is manifested.

Hill Street Blues gave me an opportunity to work with an ensemble cast of people whose work I admired.