Anderson Cooper, you're my hero

Ok, so that's a play on Ferris Beuller, but whatev. Keep reading - these are quotes from AC's book:

“…I sometimes believe it’s the motion that keeps me alive as well. I hit the ground running: truck gassed up, camera rolling…All you want to do is get it, feel it, be in it…The more I saw, however, the more I needed to see. I tried to settle down back home in Los Angeles, but I missed feeling that rush. I went to see a doctor about it. He told me I should slow down for a while, take a break. I just nodded and left, booked a flight out that day. It didn’t seem possible to stop…I wasn’t one of those adrenaline junkies I’d run into in some Third World cul-de-sac. I wasn’t looking to get shot at, wasn’t looking to take chances. I just didn’t let the risks get in the way. There was no place I wouldn’t go. Coming home meant coming down. It was easier to stay up. I’d return home to piles of bills and an empty refrigerator. Buying groceries, I’d get lost – too many aisles, too many choices…I wanted emotion, but couldn’t find it here, so I settled for motion…The more I was away, the worse it got. I’d come back and couldn’t speak the language. Out there the pain was palpable; you breathed it in the air. Back here, no one talked about life an death. No one seemed to understand.” (6-8)

“There was a time many years ago, when I first became a reporter, when I thought I could fake it. go through the motions, not give away pieces of myself in return. I focused on the mechanics: story-telling and structure. I had conversations, conducted interviews, and I wasn’t even there. I’d nod, look in other’s eyes, but my vision lost focus, my mind turned to details. People became characters, plot lines in a story I was constructing in my head…when I had what I needed, I’d pull out. I thought I could get away unscathed, unchanged. The truth was I hadn’t gotten out at all. It’s impossible to block out what you see, what your hear. Even if you stop listening, the pain gets inside, seeps through the cracks you can’t close up. You can’t fake your way through it. I know that now. You have to absorb it all. You owe them that. You owe it to yourself as well. ‘Sometimes you have to look very narrowly down the path,’ an aid worker in Somalia once said to me. ‘ You can’t look at what’s lying on either side of the road.’ I didn’t understand what he meant, but I certainly get it now. crystal clear. If you are going to escape, then there’s only so much you can stand. It’s best not to stop in one place too long. A week or two, maximum.” (32-33)

“Many times that year, I wished I had a mark, a scar, a missing limb…at least they would have seen, would have known. I wouldn’t have been expected to smile and mingle, meet and greet. Everyone could have seen that, like a broken locket, I had only half a heart.” (45-46)

Maradi, Niger – Dr. Tectonidis about babies dying from malnutrition and his advice to his nurses when they die: “I tell the nurses, ‘If you get attached and you want to cry, fine – but go somewhere else. Go hide.’ If you cry in front of the mothers, what good is that? It’s not a sign of sympathy. It makes other mothers worried. They start wondering, ‘what’s going to happen to my kid?’ You can’t do that; it’s not fair. They look up to you like you’re a God. You’re the one chance they have. Only fifty people died here last month. We saved about fifteen hundred. They don’t expect sympathy, they expect you to try your best. They don’t expect you to cry for them. That’s not your job.” (105)

“I don’t know,” I say, teasing, “They have a sign and everything – it says FORT APACHE – hanging right over the entrance to the precinct down there.” “We’ll see about that,” one of the police officers says, and a couple of guys get up and leave.”… “About an hour later, as I’m getting ready to leave, a squad car pulls into the parking lot. Two young officers get out, one clutching the hand-drawn Fort Apache sign that up until a few minutes ago had hung over the entrance to the First District’s headquarters. “How’d you get that,” I ask, laughing. “We snuck right in there, crawled under the Duty Officer’s desk, and cut it free,” one of the guys says, laughing, “Who’s the real Fort Apache now, motherf***er?” (174)