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.

Now children as young as nine carry AK47s which can kill 30 people in seconds.

So…while we’re sitting here on this luxury yacht enjoying our bread and water, why doesn’t someone tell me the plan?

Of two evils choose the prettier.

Food Stamp recipients didn't cause the financial crisis recklessness on Wall Street did.

To tolerate is to insult.

Unless you continually work, evolve, and innovate, you'll learn a quick and painful lesson from someone who has.

Real Christians do not carry their religion, their religion carries them. It is not weight, it is wings.

If ever there was a cause, if ever there can be a cause, worthy to be upheld by all of toil or sacrifice that the human heart can endure, it is the cause of Education.

Nobody knew how to be what they were right.

By a tranquil mind I mean nothing else than a mind well ordered.

I like to write about things that are extreme in some form. I like to write about something I feel I have to write about.