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

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

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 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.

Even in a war, someone has to take care of daily life. Someone has to feed and clothe the children.

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

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.