Both my parents loved words. That was the big deal in our house.

Instead of idleness, vanity, or an intellect formed by the spoon-feeding of others, my girls have acquired energy, industry, and independence.

I knew I was going to be a journalist when I was eight years old and I saw the printing presses rolling at the Sydney newspaper where my dad worked as a proofreader.

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.

She was like a butterfly, full of color and vibrancy when she chose to open her wings, yet hardly visible when she closed them.

Jewish prayers are mostly about daily things - the sliver of a new moon, dew on the grass, the bread and the wine.

I was a news reporter for 16 years, seven of them a foreign correspondent in the Middle East, Africa and the Balkans. Perhaps the most useful equipment I acquired in that time is a lack of preciousness about the act of writing. A reporter must write. There must be a story. The 'mot juste' unarriving? Tell that to your desk.