I was working in the same building as U.S. News & World Report, and I banged on the door and said, "I'm ready to go." And they said, "What's your combat experience?" I said, "Does my parents' divorce count? It was pretty rough." Then they said, "What's your reporting experience?" And I said, "I covered the women's volleyball team in college exceptionally well." The guy was like, "You are so not ready to be a war correspondent."

It is easy to get used to the morning news, habituated. But don't. The morning news is yours to alter.

Since 9/11, there has been a huge leap in people wanting to get personally involved in public service and international affairs.

In the '90s, there was scant presidential leadership and insufficient domestic political mobilization for foreign policy grounded in human rights.

There is a convergence of crises that makes it challenging to keep the world's attention.

The story of U.S. policy during the genocide in Rwanda is not a story of willful complicity with evil. U.S. officials did not sit around and conspire to allow genocide to happen.

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