I also read modern novels - I have just had to read 60 as I am one of the judges for the Orange Fiction Prize.

People always seem to assume that we have a full, back-up support team - make-up, costume and a driver - but usually, in a war zone, there's only me and the cameraman.

On the Northern Ireland question, for instance, the British and Irish governments prohibit media contact with members of the IRA, but we have always gone ahead, believing in the right to information.

Hair is also a problem. I remember once, when I was reporting from Beirut at the height of the civil war, someone wrote in to the BBC complaining about my appearance.

I have no time for the endless nostalgia: 'Oh gosh I used to . . . ' Life is too short; I don't have any time for sitting and saying I miss things. What's the point? Go and do something else.'

My job is to get to the heart of a story, to find out what's really going on; to get it verified and, then, to get it out to as many people as possible as fast as.

I don't want to be involved in endless media gossip.

I was sent to a nice Church of England girls' school and at that time, after university, a woman was expected to become a teacher, a nurse or a missionary - prior to marriage.

The better the information it has, the better democracy works. Silence and secrecy are never good for it.

I never desired to go into war zones. I never had any thought about it. It sort of just happened as part of the job.

I wrote in the book very specifically what I wanted to write about, period, and left it at.

Executive ability is deciding quickly and getting somebody else to do the work.

'Rabbi' means 'teacher, ' and I see the role of chief rabbi as chief teacher.

A total commitment gives you the extra ounce of courage that it takes to win.

A book is like a single tree in a forest, in that it exists in conjunction with and because of a great many others around it.

Hey, see if they've got any pie. Bring me some pie. I love me some pie.

Understand that if a deep desire lives in your heart, a dream that is part of your soul's fiber, a path exists to bring it to life.

The mind must be made calm and still. Then it is aimed at the sky, at the brightness, at that infinitude of being that stretches out endlessly in every direction forever.

I hate children! I hate them all!

Anything that gets you to release the stress in your life and really laugh is worthwhile. It can heal the planet. It truly can, and it actually has.