I think I naturally felt like I needed to pull back, and maybe that’s one of the reasons why I decided to get pregnant then because I was 37, and I had Lukas at 38. So I have not been covering combat recently. I haven’t covered combat in a few years. I’ve been in South Sudan. I’ve been under fire. But I’m not like — it’s a very different time, also, in history. … Now I feel like I was very torn about not being in Mosul, but I didn’t go because I felt like it was extremely dangerous, and I just couldn’t do that to my family.

I'm tired, I'm not myself and I'm not enjoying the sport as I have done for the last decade. Some might recognise it as burnout; I just know that over the last few years I haven't had the answers.

We tend to focus much more. People think focus means saying yes to the thing you've got to focus on. But that's not what it means at all. It means saying no to the hundred other good ideas that there are. You have to pick carefully.

Take no notice of anyone you don’t respect. […] Take no notice of anyone with a ­gender agenda. A lot of men still think that women lack imagination of the fiery kind.

Reading quietly, in high grass, among loved ones (who are also quietly reading). Followed by a boozy lunch.

Narcissism, solipsism.

I feel almost certain I don't know them. It would be one of these types who dedicate their lives to the welfare of others, whereas the people I tend to know are people making stories out of the dramas of themselves.

Violent death. Death generally.

Oblivious to the event or on the brink of a genuine religious conversion.

Don’t romanticise your “vocation”. You can either write good sentences or you can’t. There is no “writer’s lifestyle”. All that matters is what you leave on the page.