Quotes from Lynsey Addario

Obviously I am a photographer and I believe in my medium: I do think that powerful photographs can force change. It doesn't take long to look and be engaged in a strong image whereas, with a story, you have to actually sit down and pause and be involved in it.

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.

If I'm doing a story on how a single mother copes in a refugee camp, I'll go to her tent; I'll follow her when she's working, see what her daily life is like, and try to pack that into one composition, with nice light, in one frame.

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.

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.

If publications want to publish images and stories from a certain person, they should put that person on assignment, cover his or her expenses, make sure they have access to security briefings and experts, someone to administer first aid, etc.

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

Where in the world would I rather be than on the front line of history?

I always knew my death would be a possible consequence of the work I do. But for me it was a price I was willing to pay because this is what I believed in.

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

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.

I've rarely seen portrayals of photojournalists that seem accurate.

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.

Let's get one thing straight: I am not an adrenaline junkie. Just because you cover conflict doesn't mean you thrive on adrenaline. It means you have a purpose, and you feel it is very important for people back home to see what is happening on the front line, especially if we are sending American soldiers there.

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

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.

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

My strength is looking for composition and light, and I think those things come in the quieter times of war or photographing people affected on the margins of war - civilians, refugees; that is where I really excel.

I got rejected from journalism school!

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 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.

When I'm documenting, for example, a story on women in Afghanistan, I will do a huge amount of research and a lot of time on the ground just getting to know the women before I even start shooting.

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.