The Americans invaded a country without understanding what eight years of a war with Iran had meant, how that traumatized Iraq. They didn't appreciate what they support for a decade of sanctions in Iraq had done to Iraq and the bitterness that it created and that it wiped out the middle class.

The one thing that shaped my life was when I was 15 or 16: I knew I wanted to be a journalist. And not just a journalist, but a journalist in the Middle East, and to go back to the Arab world and try to understand what it meant to be Lebanese.

On the flip side, I enjoy covering the Arab world, I've spent my entire career here in the Middle East, but I would never call myself a war correspondent.

I started doing some interviews with elderly people in the family because I knew they would pass away and we would lose the power of their story.

Grief reveals itself in the most mundane activities, like eating. It's never when you're looking at old pictures.

I never kissed my father until he was on his death bed.

There is no fundamental difference between the preparation for death and the practice of dying, and spiritual practice leading to enlightenment.

Believe me, when you're sitting on death row, you want the appeal process to take time; as long as you're going through it, you're going to be alive.