I got into journalism not to be a journalist but to try to change American foreign policy. I'm a corny person. I was a dreamer predating my journalistic life, so I got into journalism as a means to try to change the world.

We need to find means for cooperation.

There's something beautiful about working in the one place in the world where the world is present, like United Nations. Otherwise, one would have to go to each of these countries to negotiate.

I get to be married to the liveliest mind I've ever encountered.... I hit the jackpot.

Another longstanding foreign policy flaw is the degree to which special interests dictate the way in which the "national interest" as a whole is defined and pursued.... America's important historic relationship with Israel has often led foreign policy decision-makers to defer reflexively to Israeli security assessments, and to replicate Israeli tactics, which, as the war in Lebanon last summer demonstrated, can turn out to be counter-productive.

I joke that I spent 38 years scouring the globe, going to war zones, trying to find the person with my exact birthday.

When I wake up in the middle of the night when I hear one of my kids coughing or crying, I think about Syria.