Top 99 Quotes & Sayings by Lynsey Addario - Page 2

I think, for me, personally, I try to be sensitive to issues as I learn about them. And I also try to constantly become not only a certain type of person but also become more in tune to the issues I'm covering. As I get older, I think that things just affect me more.

Since Sept. 11, many of the wars of our generation are in the Muslim world. So as a woman, I have access to 50 percent of the population that my male colleagues don't.

I'm a very open person, very self-deprecating. I accept my flaws.

With each assignment, I weigh the looming possibility of being killed, and I chastise myself for allowing fear to hinder me. War photographers aren't supposed to get scared.

I just immediately connect everything to the wars I have been covering overseas, and that's not the case back home. I wrongly assumed all Americans at home were as consumed with our troops in Afghanistan as I was abroad.

Look, I would say that anyone who does this work and doesn't have a strain of idealism is an adrenaline junkie or completely narcissistic. There is no other justification. You're risking your life, and if anything happens, it's our families who suffer tremendously.

Don't expect things to happen fast. Be empathetic with the people you are photographing. Don't be concerned about money.

My job is to take the pictures, communicate a message, to bring those images to the greater public through whatever publication I'm working for. My job is really to be a messenger, and that's what I've been doing.

For me personally, I'm constantly trying to really re-negotiate how I'm going to make a living because I can't make a living solely off editorial. And I'm also still trying to tell long feature stories that are harder and harder to get assigned, you know.

Photography of any living being, according to Taliban rule, was illegal. So when I went to Afghanistan, immediately I was worried about photographing people. But it was what I wanted: to show what life was like under the Taliban, specifically for women.

I think there were times when I first started out, when I was covering Iraq - I was basically living there in 2003 and 2004 - that car bombs and attacks became so the norm that it was weird for me to leave and realize that no one else actually cared about what was going on there.

Family is such a fundamental part of Islam, and women run the family. I had to force myself not to impose my own definition of political and social freedom on women in Islam, and approach each story objectively.

It was nice to be in my own country, where I didn't need a translator or a driver. Where I didn't need to figure out cultural references or what hijab I needed to wear to cover my hair.

I try not to get caught up in how our society is so inundated with images, and stay very focused on the work that I'm doing.

Every story takes its toll on me and leaves an impression on me.

If people really saw what was happening in Iraq and Afghanistan, then they might be marching in the streets to end wars. But you know, I think that no one ever sees because we're not allowed to see, and we're not allowed to publish what we do see. So it's quite difficult.

The more I photographed Muslim women, the more I was able to metaphorically strip away the burqas and hijabs, and start chipping away at the profound misconceptions that existed in other parts of the world about these women and their culture.

I was undeterred by the danger of traveling as a single American woman through Taliban-governed land. I believed in the stories I wanted to tell, the stories I felt were underreported, and I was convinced that that belief would keep me alive.

I come from a big family of hairdressers; they didn't read newspapers. I would say, 'I'm off to Afghanistan...' and they would say, 'Have fun!'

I didn't want my gender to determine whether or not I could cover breaking news.

I knew that my interest lied in international stories. I was interested in how women were living under the Taliban, for example.

You have to believe 100 percent in what you're doing, that some picture or some thing we do is going to change the world in some tiny, minute way.

I'm not the kind of person to sit and dwell for ages on something that happened. I go through something, I experience it, I try to learn from it, and I move forward.

In so many countries, Western journalists are viewed simply as dollar signs. We're ransom objects.

I generally don't follow domestic news that much aside from how it relates to the stories I'm covering abroad, like what Americans think of the War in Afghanistan.

I'm constantly struggling. You know, the stories that I feel like I could cover, do the work that I want to do and being a mother. That's really where my struggle is - and being a wife and having a life - and for me it's really hard to find that balance. I'm always struggling to find that balance.

Americans are really lovely people - friendly, kind and willing to help you out.

There are ways to minimize the risk if you are a woman working in the Middle East: You can dress modestly, wear the hijab, cover your head, always travel with a man.

I found that the camera was a comforting companion. It opened up new worlds, and gave me access to people's most intimate moments. I discovered the privilege of seeing life in all its complexity, the thrill of learning something new every day. When I was behind a camera, it was the only place in the world I wanted to be.

I've always been interested in the rest of the world. My family is very eccentric; my parents have always been very supportive of travel and doing whatever I thought I needed to do.

I hope that my work helps people - that's the thing that drives me and keeps me going.

I just pray. And I'm not very religious at all - I was raised Catholic, but probably haven't gone to church since my Holy Communion, when I was about 6 or 7.

I was assigned a Taliban "minder" who followed me everywhere. But he couldn't follow me into homes where there were women, so I took photos inside people's homes.

Mortars and artillery don't discriminate against gender.

People think photography is about photographing. To me, it’s about relationships.

The goal for me is to pull in the reader and to have them ask questions.

If women are all of a sudden complaining all the time about getting sent to Pakistan, then if I were an editor, I probably wouldn't send a woman.

When I read about women living under the Taliban, I really wanted to travel there and see for myself: Is it that bad? What is the situation? I remember the night before I left for my trip, I called my mom and said, "I'm going to Afghanistan tomorrow."

I'm incredibly focused. I think it's a blessing and a curse. I'm so driven that nothing else can stand in my way. For many years, I didn't have a personal life.