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 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.

I believe the consequences of a war are so harsh that it should be always the last resort.

As a war correspondent, you have to weigh the risk you run against the story you can get.

There is nothing I would change - to change it I would have had to write a totally different book.

Being a war correspondent, and having covered four wars, I know that wars very seldom solve things.

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