...The hagaddah came to Sarajevo for a reason. It was here to test us, to see if there were people who could see that what united us was more than what divided us. That to be a human being matters more than to be a Jew or a Muslim, Catholic or Orthodox. p. 361

The Sarajevans have a very particular world view - a mordant wit coupled with this unbearable sadness and... truckloads of guts, you know.

When you're writing non-fiction, you go as far as you can go, and then ethically you have to stop. You can't go. You can't suppose. You can't imagine. And I think there's something in human nature that wants to finish the story.

It is human nature to imagine, to put yourself in another's shoes. The past may be another country. But the only passport required is empathy.

September 11, 2001, revealed heroism in ordinary people who might have gone through their lives never called upon to demonstrate the extent of their courage.

The brave man, the real hero, quakes with terror, sweats, feels his very bowels betray him, and in spite of this moves forward to do the act he dreads.

And when I'd be reporting in Israel, Palestinians would say, the Jews they're not like us, and the Jews would say the same things about the Palestinians, they don't want what we want. And I never bought it as a reporter and I don't buy it as a novelist. I think, you know, the sound of somebody crying for their lost child sounds the same.