Asne Seierstad quotes:

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.

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.

The judgment means a lot. As a journalist being accused of invading someone's privacy, there is always a risk that it will stick to your name.

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.

I'm trying to see my own country with fresh eyes.

The family is the single most important institution in Afghan culture. It is described in the country's constitution as the 'fundamental pillar of society'.

It was very difficult to write about my own country, because I have always been the outsider looking in.

I will get a loan and pay the money the court asks for. But I will not lay down my writing and I still say this was an important book to write.

There is nothing I would change - to change it I would have had to write a totally different book.

If you've lived in a dictatorship for thirty years, you're used to people lying to you.

I think when you start to get afraid, it's time to leave.

If my name had not been cleared, it would have been difficult, perhaps impossible, to continue as a journalist.

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

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.

The family is the single most important institution in Afghan culture. It is described in the countrys constitution as the fundamental pillar of society.

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

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.

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

I always try to describe the situation just as it is. I try to find sentences that I believe tell the story best. Even my articles are more literary than ordinary news stories.

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

Being a war correspondent, and having covered four wars, I know that wars very seldom solve things.

There is no journalist without opinions, and there's no real objectivity, but we can strive toward it.

As a war correspondent, you have to weigh the risk you run against the story you can get.

Even in a war, someone has to take care of daily life. Someone has to feed and clothe the children.

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

There are personal reasons, psychological reasons, but there could also be political reasons for becoming a terrorist.