Many of us didn't believe in the image of bin Laden as a wandering Old Man of the Mountains, living on plants and insects in an inhospitable cave somewhere on the porous Pakistan-Afghan border.

The great concern is that year after year, rising numbers of journalists are being killed in pursuit of their work. They are increasingly seen as not being neutral but rather as combatants by one side or the other.

My children are English, and both of their mothers were English.

I was living in New York at the time of the 9/11 attacks. And I remember, you know, in those weeks that followed, when none of us spoke about anything else really, a number of friends of mine, people I knew, including very experienced journalists, I heard them saying things like, well, now we understand what happened to you.

Language is courage: the ability to conceive a thought, to speak it, and by doing so to make it true.

You don't fight radical conservatism with not-quite-so radical conservatism.

Everest silences you...when you come down, nothing seems worth saying, nothing at all. You find the nothingness wrapping you up, like a sound. Non-being. You can't keep it up, of course. the world rushes in soon enough. What shuts you up is, I think, the sight you've had of perfection: why speak if you can't manage perfect thoughts, perfect sentences? It feels like a betrayal of what you've been through. But it fades; you accept that certain compromises, closures, are required if you're to continue.