There is a painful joke that Europeans often tell of their Gallic neighbors: God created France, the most beautiful country in the world with so much good in it, and ended up feeling guilty about it. He had to do something to make it fair. And so, he created the French people.
Stockholm is surely an urban planner's dream. Everything works. Everything looks good.
Sarajevo was this beautiful city, very cosmopolitan, multiethnic, full of wonderful people, artists and writers and poets and Serbs and Muslims and Croats, and living side by side. And then this medieval siege, and it was a medieval siege, came, and the Bosnian Serbs were on the hills lobbing in rockets and grenades and mortars.
Lake Como has always been a magnet for the elite.
In the aftermath of any war or genocide, healing and reconciliation are ultimate aspirations.
Easter is meant to be a symbol of hope, renewal, and new life.
Human memory is short and terribly fickle.
Sibling rivalry was, and still is to this day, rampant in my family. We were all competing for my parents' divided attention.
Once Iraq became a hot bed for kidnapping, reporters had to use every kind of trick they could manage to avoid it. This included chase cars, security men for more prosperous agencies and networks, and GPS signals on satellite phones that could pinpoint the journalist's locations.
Nonviolence worked in Serbia, and it can work in other countries seeking their freedom.
Even as a small child, I wondered why the Dominican nuns who educated me were subservient to the Jesuit priests who educated my brothers.
Manhattan is increasingly less available to average-income earners.
I know being pregnant and giving birth is the most wonderful thing on Earth. I know that after you have a baby, there is a sense of addiction, a need to have another. It's biological.
There is a romantic, often misguided, misconception among the British that life in France is akin to life in Paradise.
It is a well known urban myth that the French don't trust banks and store their money under their mattress. It's not that they are tight with money - they just don't trust anyone.
I see so many people get so wrapped up in wanting to get a bigger SUV or a bigger house. But then I think, 'My God, I could have been born a woman in the Congo.'
When I did a year-long study in 2005 of European countries integrating Muslims into their cultures, France came in the lowest of the rank. Sweden was not far behind, though, which is worrying, as racism in France is much closer to the bone.
I love magazines. I always read 'Time,' 'Newsweek' and 'The Economist.' When I get my hair cut, French 'Vogue,' French 'Elle,' 'Paris Match' - I read them all in 10 minutes.
In a very straightforward way, I am a terrible reporter. I'm not someone who can go into a story and not get involved.
Africa is a very dangerous place.
