Many people have their reputations as reporters and analysts because they are on television batting around conventional wisdom. A lot of these people have never reported a story.

I'm actually reading 'World War Z' again! It's incredibly realistic and it's written as an oral history through interviews with different characters. Max Brooks wrote this book in so many different voices. There are about forty or so. It's incredible. When I finish 'World War Z' I'm going to go back and start again on the 'Game of Thrones' series.

With Vietnam the Iraq War so many American films about war are almost always from the American point of view. You almost never have a Middle Eastern character by name with a story.

We are all tourists in history and irony is what we win in wars.

In seeking truth you have to get both sides of a story.

I cringe at backstory. Because it never quite explains or gets into some psychological thing that is never quite right and never quite the truth and who knows why someone is some way.

Of course it's the same old story. Truth usually is the same old story.

It's a complete lie why do people buy these papers? It's not the truth I'm here to say. You know don't judge a person do not pass judgement unless you have talked to them one on one. I don't care what the story is do not judge them because it is a lie.

It's the same old story you've heard a thousand times. Somebody's trust gets broken. Somebody's left behind.

As a historian what I trust is my ability to take a mass of information and tell a story shaped around it.