I believe the consequences of a war are so harsh that it should be always the last resort.

As the only woman, I was able to sit with the officers in front, with a glass of vodka in one hand and a cucumber in the other. That's how I went to my first war.

I would like my book to give people insight to the war before and after, but I don't think anyone could read my book and suddenly make up her mind about the war. I want to write for everybody.

We don't grow up in vacuums. We grow up in societies.

I was thinking, there are 5 million people, and I am just one of those 5 million. In the build-up to the war you see children playing in the street, and you think, ah, I'm going to be okay.

We have believing in this innocent feeling of nothing will ever happen to us, because all catastrophes always broad and happening to anyone else.

When I decided to stay in Iraq, I decided to take the fear out of my body and put it into a freezer.

If we can't understand the Afghan family, we can't understand Afghanistan.

If I leave, reality will devour me. Then they will all really be dead.

As a woman, you accept the situation, adapt to it, and do your best, whereas men would choose violence.

If I lose, then I have to accept that my way of writing books is not the way society says it's okay to write.

Life doesn't imitate art, it imitates bad television.

If you want to be successful, it's just this simple. Know what you are doing. Love what you are doing. And believe in what you are doing.

Who misses what they have never, ever even imagined?

Let us look around with a compassionate heart to feel and see the deepest joy of life.

You can never betray the people who are dead, so you go on being a public Jew; the dead can't answer slurs, but I'm here. I would love to think that Jesus wants me for a sunbeam, but he doesn't.

Use the smallest word that does the job.

You can feel very quickly as a prisoner of your past, of the memories.

I'm in favor of personal growth as long as it doesn't include malignant tumors.

I've got the brain of a four year old. I'll bet he was glad to be rid of it.

I will always be open to receive my friends. I will not force myself on them.