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" As a photographer who is constantly in violent, bloody situations where the instinct is to turn away, I am always trying to figure out how to make people not turn away. "

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" 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. "

Lynsey Addario

See

People

Think

" Journalists dedicate their lives to covering war - they make many personal sacrifices, and it's not something that's gender-based. In a place like Libya where there's heavy fighting, it doesn't matter if you're a man or a woman. "

" I think that more often than not, people underestimate me. "

Lynsey Addario

Underestimate

Think

" When I first started out, I really felt like, 'I'm a journalist; I will be respected as a neutral observer.' And I don't feel like that holds true anymore. I don't think people respect journalists the same way they once did. "

" 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. "

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

Lynsey Addario

Flaws

Open

" For me, it's more about being there, bearing witness to history, bearing witness to what's happening, what our country, the position our country is taking overseas. I want policy-makers to see the fruits of their decisions, basically, and to try and influence foreign policy. "

Lynsey Addario

Try

Influence

" The first time I visited Afghanistan in May 2000, I was 26 years old, and the country was under Taliban rule. I went there to document Afghan women and landmine victims. "

" The Taliban rose to power in 1996, vowing stability and an end to the violence raging across the country between warring mujahedeen factions, and to implement rule by Sharia law, or strict Islamic rule. "

" One day I am at home, watching dramatic images of Iraqi Yazidis fleeing for their lives being aired nonstop on 24-hour news channels. Days later, I am there, staring at tens of thousands of displaced Iraqis and feeling a 35-millimeter frame cannot capture the scope of devastation and heartbreak before me. "

Lynsey Addario

Feeling

News

" 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. "

Lynsey Addario

Belief

Woman

" It's very hard to turn your back once you're aware of what's going on, and you're aware of the injustices, and you're aware of the civilian casualties. It's much easier if you have no idea and you've never seen it. "

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

" I think it's important to have perspective and to look at what you don't necessarily want to see. "

" It seems like, yeah, of course - I always think my work is important, or I wouldn't risk my life for it. "

" I interviewed dozens and dozens of African women who had endured more hardship and trauma than most Westerners even read about, and they ploughed on. I often openly cried during interviews, unable to process this violence and hatred towards women I was witnessing. "

" 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 wanted to continue doing my work, but I had to figure out how. And so what I have basically come up with is that I still go to Afghanistan and Iraq and South Sudan and many of these places that are rife with war, but I don't go directly to the front line. "

" A lot of women act like it's the easiest decision, and I'm just going to have a baby and put my life on hold and not be worried about it. Well, I was worried. "

" As a Western woman in the Middle East, I am often put in a different category. I am sort of like the third sex. I am not treated like a man. I am not treated like a woman. I am just treated like a journalist. That is usually really helpful. "

" I was kidnapped by Sunni insurgents near Fallujah, in Iraq, ambushed by the Taliban in the Korengal Valley in Afghanistan, and injured in a car accident that killed my driver while covering the Taliban occupation of the Swat Valley in Pakistan. "

" For me, taking photographs is such a tortured process. I'm always feeling like I'm not getting enough: I'm in the wrong place, the light isn't good, the subject's not comfortable. "

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

Lynsey Addario

Story

Every

" I remember the moment in which we were taken hostage in Libya, and we were asked to lie face down on the ground, and they started putting our arms behind our backs and started tying us up. And we were each begging for our lives because they were deciding whether to execute us, and they had guns to our heads. "

" To me, it's so much about doing your homework, going into a situation, getting to know the subject, making them feel comfortable, getting intimate access, getting access to all different aspects of people's lives so that I am essentially telling an entire story and not just a single image. "

Lynsey Addario

Story

People

" My life isn't always at risk, even if I'm in a war zone. A lot of these places have areas of calm, so covering war doesn't necessarily mean being shot at all the time. "

" I wanted the ideal personal life, but I also wanted to keep rushing off, and that doesn't work, not unless you've got an incredibly understanding partner. "

" As a war correspondent and a mother, I've learned to live in two different realities... but it's my choice. I choose to live in peace and witness war - to experience the worst in people but to remember the beauty. "

" I've worked for over 11 years in the Muslim world, and the one thing that I feel like I've learned - who's to say if it's true or not true, it's just my experience - is that men don't like to see really strong, aggressive women in that area of the world. "

" I had first visited Kurdistan in 2003 before the invasion of Iraq, camping out in Erbil and Sulaimaniya while waiting for Saddam Hussein's fall. "