And one thing that I always believed and that I knew for certain was that I could never have sustained a personal relationship while I worked this hard, or while I was that driven this intensely by the story.

'm thrilled to be joining the incredible team at ABC News. Being asked to anchor 'This Week' and the superb tradition started by David Brinkley, is a tremendous and rare honor, and I look forward to discussing the great domestic and international issues of the day.

But 17 years ago, I arrived at CNN with a suitcase, with my bicycle, and with about 100 dollars.

We hear foreign accents on CNN. It's crazy, it's wild, who knows, maybe they'll take you because you certainly don't fit in, in the American spectrum of news.

In emerging democracies like Russia, in authoritarian states like Iran or even Yugoslavia, journalists play a vital role in civil society. In fact, they form the very basis of those new democracies and civil societies.

Little did we know then that CNN would become the big league.

We manage the fear, I manage the fear, but it certainly takes its toll, the strain does.

I am no longer sure that when I go out there and do my job it'll even see the light of air, if the experience of my network colleagues is anything to go by.

In Bosnia, little children shot in the head by a guy who thinks it's okay to aim his gun at a child.

I was really just the tea boy to begin with, or the equivalent thereof, but I quickly announced, innocently but very ambitiously, that I wanted to be, I was going to be, a foreign correspondent.

U.S. soldiers, with whom I now have more than a passing acquaintance, joke that they track my movements in order to know where they will be deployed next.

Yes, you are running businesses, and yes, we understand and accept that, but surely there must be a level beyond which profit from news is simply indecent.

We do it because we're committed, because we're believers.

Indeed in the full flush of journalistic passion and conviction I once told an interviewer that of course I would never get married. And I most definitely would never have children.

And I really believe good journalism is good business.

If you have a child, I said, you have a responsibility at least to stay alive.

And I believe that good journalism, good television, can make our world a better place.

What we do and say and show really matters.

But to be self-obsessed is simply not o.k. for the most important country in the world, the United States, which affects every other country in the world.

I'm not an American but I have always had the outsiders' respect for the American people and the American way.

I have made my living bearing witness to some of the most horrific events of the end of our century, at the end of the 20th century.

I have spent the past ten years in just about every war zone there was.

And one thing that I always believed and that I knew for certain was that I could never have sustained a personal relationship while I worked this hard, or while I was that driven this intensely by the story.

Because if we the storytellers don't do this, then the bad people will win.

I have always thought it morally unacceptable to kill stories, not to run stories, that people have risked their lives to get.

They take journalism really seriously because they know the force that it is and can be.

For instance, why are we terrorizing this country, leading with murder and mayhem, when crime is actually on the decline, as somebody, as somebody mentioned?

Here in the United States, our profession is much maligned, people simply don't trust or like journalists anymore and that's sad.

Our industry has invested so much money in technology that perhaps it's time to invest in talent, in people.

In Iran the whole reform and democracy movement has been based on the emerging free press.

We were thrilled and we were privileged to be part of a revolution, because make no mistake about it, Ted Turner changed the world with CNN.

We in the press, by our power, can actually undermine leadership.

I was planning, I told everybody, to take him on the road with me. At the very least I fully expected to keep up my hectic pace, and my passion as a war correspondent.

I leave CNN with the utmost respect, love and admiration for the company and everyone who works here. This has been my family and shared endeavor for the past 27 years, and I am forever grateful and proud of all that we have accomplished.

If we have no respect for our viewers, then how can we have any respect for ourselves and what we do?

I never assumed that because I was a woman that anything was off limits to me.

If we have no respect for our viewers then how can we have any respect for ourselves and what we do

Good journalism, good television, can make our world a better place.

Part of being creative is not being super-duper focused.

Grudges are for those who insist that they are owed something forgiveness however is for those who are substantial enough to move on.

I don't want to hope anymore. I don't think we should hope anymore. We hoped enough. Now we have to do. We all have to do now.

Exterior beauty, without the depth of a kind soul is merely decoration.

I'm the type of skater that needs to stay upbeat and relaxed, open, because if I stay quiet, I get in my head, and then I start to think too much and start to doubt.

I am a story teller and I take each story very seriously.

I never took the work less than serious, my work ethic is ingrained in me. But I've always had a sense of humor about myself.

Lying is a sin destructive to society for there is no trade where there is no trust and there is no trust where there is no truth.

But the path you end up on means that you have to close a lot of doors, too.

When you start hiding things away, that's when the darkness creeps up. Sunlight is the best disinfectant.

I think that's created a healthy environment. The comparisons to "ER" were maddening and there was this assumption that the two of us were looking at each other with rage and resentment, which was also not the case.