It's totally mistaken to suppose that an armed escort is going to give a journalist any protection - on the contrary, journalists who turn up surrounded by armed personnel are just turning themselves into targets and in even worse danger.

But in the first Gulf war the United Kingdom was not under any threat from Iraq, and is still less so in the second one. Then there is no justification for obstructing freedom of information, particularly as nations have a right to know what their soldiers are being used for.

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 also read modern novels - I have just had to read 60 as I am one of the judges for the Orange Fiction Prize.

I don't sit there and speculate. I'm not that sort of person. It wastes time, actually.

If I'm in danger then it's usually my fault and it's up to me to get myself out of it. I am not in it just to get an adrenalin rush. No way!

In Sierra Leone last year there was just the two of us hanging out of a helicopter and, when we were in Bosnia, I drove an armoured vehicle, thousands of miles.

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.

Up until about 12 years ago we never, ever, wore flak jacket or helmets but now the nastiness has got worse.

No two wars are identical.

I will never retire.

The better the information it has, the better democracy works. Silence and secrecy are never good for it.

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

I don't want to be involved in endless media gossip.

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.

I have never been attracted to any kind of violence.

I keep telling myself to calm down, to take less of an interest in things and not to get so excited, but I still care a lot about liberty, freedom of speech and expression, and fairness in journalism.

It's totally mistaken to suppose that an armed escort is going to give a journalist any protection - on the contrary, journalists who turn up surrounded by armed personnel are just turning themselves into targets and in even worse danger.

I have nothing to do with the selection of stories. I'm the reporter.

I was timid and frightened as a child. Yours truly did not shin up mountains or do any other kind of adventurous stuff.

It wasn't glamorous in my day. In the regions, reporters were seen as such low life that they didn't merit their name in the Radio Times. Now people are interested in being famous. I never gave it a thought.

I wrote in the book very specifically what I wanted to write about, period, and left it at.

I've never been one to sit around and eat my heart out. Life's too short.

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.

Beslan, where the Russian authorities stopped live coverage of the school being stormed, was an illustration of the progress we still have to make.

When you are covering a life-or-death struggle, as British reporters were in 1940, it is legitimate and right to go along with military censorship, and in fact in situations like that there wouldn't be any press without the censorship.

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.

I sailed through my childhood with a complete lack of any drama.

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.

War zones are dangerous, protests can be violent, also, natural disasters are difficult to cover, so there are going to be risks.

A person's fears are lighter when the danger is at hand.

With the success of the last three or so years, when a lot of people start treating you differently, there's a danger that you may start to think of yourself differently. You rely on your friends to say, 'Hey, wake up!'

There is danger from all men. The only maxim of a free government ought to be to trust no man living with power to endanger the public liberty.

The best way to avoid danger is to meet it plump.

General Sherman looked upon journalists as a nuisance and a danger at headquarters and in the field, and acted toward them accordingly, then as throughout his great war career.

The great danger for family life, in the midst of any society whose idols are pleasure, comfort and independence, lies in the fact that people close their hearts and become selfish.

It wouldn't sit easily on one's conscience that you had been warned and there could be danger, but nevertheless you went ahead and said let's dispense these drugs.

By increasing the size of the keyhole, today's playwrights are in danger of doing away with the door.

Terrorism is a big danger to Pakistan's independence. We will fight this danger for the sake of independence of Pakistan and will defeat it at all levels.

The United States stands with our friends in Britain as they recover from today's shock of terrorism. These barbaric acts strengthen our resolve and remind us all of the danger of complacency during our continued war on terror.

In this world there is always danger for those who are afraid of it.

It is a high patriotic duty that we support and sustain the men who have been placed in position of difficulty, burden, responsibility, and even danger as the result of our suffrages.

Everyone by now presumably knows about the danger of premature optimization. I think we should be just as worried about premature design - designing too early what a program should do.

I did not imagine that the second half of my life would be spent on efforts to avert a mortal danger to humanity created by science.

The proximity of a desirable thing tempts one to overindulgence. On that path lies danger.

Putin can't afford to leave the office because he will be in real danger of being prosecuted for things he and his people did during their stay in power.

There was never any danger of Business 2.0 ever going under.

We... our war began September the 3rd 1939, with the invasion of Poland by Germany, and thereafter the great state of danger in England at that time, with the bombings, necessitated the evacuation of children.

The danger of that - and there's a grave danger that I, myself, have to be very aware of - is that you become so involved and intrigued in the language that sometimes you lose track that that is only a means to an aesthetic experience that the listener has to get.