Anthony Shadid Quotations

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.

Night Draws Near: Iraq's People in the Shadow of America's War.

As a journalist, your job is to bear witness.

Cultures that may seem as durable as stone can break like glass, leaving all the things that held them together unattended. I believe that the craftsman, the artist, the cook, and the silversmith are peacemakers. They instill grace; they lull the world to calm.

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.

In any kind of conflict, you have a certain dehumanization that comes along with it. And it's important as a reporter, a writer, a journalist, to try to restore humanity.

Journalism is always the art of the incomplete. You get bits and pieces.

I had a great childhood. I think writers are always better off when they have more twisted childhoods, but I didn't.

The best journalism is sometimes about footnotes—when we write small to say something big.

Each side, American and Iraqi, saw their actions as responses to the other's threats. Each side felt the other was forcing it to act. Each side thought the other only understood force.