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"I think to a certain extent in Bosnia and among the Hutus in Rwanda and also among the Tutsis in Rwanda who then took revenge on the Hutus, there is a sense of being swept up and a sense that the society in which they live has gone mad."
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"Generally speaking, our prisoners were capable of loving animals, and if they had been allowed they would have delighted to rear large numbers of domestic animals and birds in the prison. And I wonder what other activity could better have softened and refined their harsh and brutal natures than this. But it was not allowed. Neither the regulations nor the nature of the prison made it possible."
"Half of the world population is dying from poverty and hunger and still you think you are not rich enough."
"All changes are more or less tinged with melancholy, for what we are leaving behind is part of ourselves."
"The downside of my celebrity is that I cannot go anywhere in the world without being recognized. It is not enough for me to wear dark sunglasses and a wig. The wheelchair gives me away."
"A lot of attention has been given over to the Catholic Churches sexual abuse of children in their care, but this attention seems to have been hijacked by the media and has overshadowed the many thousands of victims that endured physical abuse."
"As the mainstream media has become increasingly dependent on advertising revenues for support, it has become an anti-democratic force in society."
"More humane societies are usually smaller, like the Scandinavian countries and Holland, where it is much easier to reach consensus and cooperation."
Explore more quotes by John Pomfret
"When I see somebody being mistreated, my eyes tear up and I want to stop it. And I believe that the best thing I can do is to write about it, because if I insert myself into the equation it doesn't really do much good, but if I write about it I think it could do more good."
"I went back to the States and started at a small newspaper in Riverside County, California, covering the police; I was making $280 a week covering the police."
"For me the much more significant question is what did the Americans do, if anything, to help the Croatian army, because they are the ones that changed fundamentally the map of Bosnia, not the Bosnian army."
"And then I was lucky enough to get the opportunity to go to China in 1980, which was quite early."
"Working overseas is more difficult in that it's much more complicated to get people to open their hearts to you and to tell you information."
"The one indication that I got that I was doing the right job in Bosnia was that at different periods of time all the factions came down very hard on me."
"But on the other hand, in the midst of the chaos, you find normal people. You find people who are willing to risk their lives to tell you what they saw, even though they have no dog in the fight."
"And when they do spin out of control there are important ramifications that affect America, not just its direct national interest but its broader interests as a nation which has thought of itself as a beacon to other nations, of freedom, liberty, democracy, whatever."
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