For people who are displaced, you can reconstruct the story of your life from the objects you have access to, but if you don't have the objects then there are holes in your life. This is why people in Bosnia - if anyone was running back into a burning house, it was to salvage photos.
Aleksandar Hemon
When I came to America, I was already a writer, already published in Bosnia. I was planning to go back, but I had no choice but to stay here after the civil war, so I enrolled at Northwestern in a master's program and studied American literature.
In Bosnian, there's no distinction in literature between fiction and nonfiction; there's no word describing that.
When I found myself in the U.S., and the war was at full swing in Bosnia, I read for survival - it was a means of thought resuscitation.
We know darned well that in Bosnia, certain governments and the secretary had said tens of thousands are needed in Srebrenica and those people were never provided.
Alex Morrison
Bosnia is a complicated country: three religions, three nations and those 'others'. Nationalism is strong in all three nations; in two of them there are a lot of racism, chauvinism, separatism; and now we are supposed to make a state out of that.
Alija Izetbegovic
I would sacrifice peace in order to win sovereignty for Bosnia, but for that peace in Bosnia, I would not sacrifice sovereignty.
As far as the sovereignty of Bosnia-Hercegovina is concerned we agreed to have limited sovereignty for a limited time and that is clear from the Dayton Agreement.
The international community is pushing things forward in Bosnia... but it is doing it at expense of the Muslim people. I feel it as an injustice, these are the things that I cannot live with.
We Bosniaks would for sure fight for integrity of Bosnia.
Yet, only years after the Nazi-era, millions were sent to their deaths in places such as Cambodia, Bosnia and Rwanda, and the world once again took too long to act.
Allyson Schwartz
In my 20 years as a photographer, covering conflicts from Bosnia to Gaza to Iraq to Afghanistan, injured civilians and soldiers have passed through my life many times.
Anja Niedringhaus
In Bosnia, little children shot in the head by a guy who thinks it's okay to aim his gun at a child.
Christiane Amanpour
Every now and then I will see a word as if for the first time, and suddenly appreciate that Evian is 'naive' spelled backward, or that Bosnia is an anagram of 'bonsai.'
Christopher Hitchens
If it wasn't for the military I probably would not have ever come to Bosnia for vacation.
Coolio
In Bosnia and Herzegovina, a country of few but nonetheless good films, it is almost impossible to produce a film without access to various European initiatives and funds. Creative Europe and its media program are essential for our film industry.
Danis Tanovic
The art of coalition command - whether it is here in Afghanistan, whether it was in Iraq or in Bosnia or in Haiti - is to take the resources you are provided with, understand what the strengths and weaknesses are and to employ them to the best overall effect.
David Petraeus
I had the privilege of serving in uniform with British forces in Cold War Europe, Bosnia, Iraq, Afghanistan, and the greater Middle East.
My mum said: 'Germany is our second home' and it's true. Germany gave us their open hands. I don't know which country could have done that, at that time, to welcome refugees from Bosnia.
Dejan Lovren
To be honest, I don't feel like I am able to say that I had a childhood, not in a way normal kids my age had. I had something that was specific to Bosnia in '90s, something I call a period of survival.
Edin Dzeko
When the opportunity came, it was a fantastic thing for myself and my family to do, I couldn't wait to put on a Bosnia shirt, and I haven't really looked back since.
Our inability to relate to one another is very, very, very important. When we don't have it, we get situations like Bosnia.
If Israel does not find the way to disengage from the Palestinians, its future might resemble the experience of Belfast or Bosnia - two communities bleeding each other to death for generations.
I never wanted an independent Bosnia. I wanted Yugoslavia. That is my country.
I am a living illustration of Bosnian mixing and converting. My grandparents lived in eastern Herzegovina. Very poor. The Turks came and brought Islam. There were three brothers in the family. One was Orthodox Christian. The other two took Islam to survive.
Before I became a SEAL, I'd done humanitarian work around the world - with refugee families in Bosnia, with unaccompanied children in Rwanda, with kids who lost limbs to land mines in Cambodia.
I first started doing service, actually, as a kid, doing service projects. Later in college, I started doing international humanitarian work that brought me to places like Bosnia, Rwanda.
I am hopeful that no one will forget what happened in Bosnia.
You should give no indication that we wish the three-way division of Bosnia.
Let's make a deal with the Serbs. Neither history nor emotion in the Balkans will permit multinationalism. We have to give up on the illusion of the last eight years... Dayton isn't working. Nobody - except diplomats and petty officials - believes in a sovereign Bosnia and the Dayton accords.
The Cold War, Bosnia and Ukraine remind us that peace is fragile. Iraq and Syria remind us that no society or culture is immune from conflict.
I always cherish my ancestors, my grandpa, great-grandpa, what they did for us, especially my dad who moved from Bosnia. He started a new life in Slovenia so basically I grew up there.
The industry of political conflict is the biggest industry in Bosnia, and it is still not exhausted. What is needed is to replace these two industries - the industry of political conflict, the industry of human rights - with normal, creative walks of life.
The new history is really ancient history newly discovered. Journalists are taking crash courses in the blood-drenched background of Serbs, Croats, Bosnians, North Ossetians, Armenians and Azerbaijanis.
My father is Croatian but went to school in Bosnia, and my mother's also Croatian but lived in Bosnia.
Our fundamental goal in getting involved in Bosnia in the summer of 1995 was to end the war. Richard Holbrooke's fundamental goal was to negotiate a peace: a peace that was sustaining and self-sustaining over the long term.
Sarajevo was this beautiful city, very cosmopolitan, multiethnic, full of wonderful people, artists and writers and poets and Serbs and Muslims and Croats, and living side by side. And then this medieval siege, and it was a medieval siege, came, and the Bosnian Serbs were on the hills lobbing in rockets and grenades and mortars.
The Wahhabi movement is a form of radical Islam that people here say did not exist before in Bosnia, where Islam had co-existed with other major religions and was much softer and more liberal.
In Bosnia, there are no 35mm cameras. There are no film labs.
In the case of Bosnia, studies showed that turning to religion was a consequence of post-war depression and dissatisfaction.
As a woman filmmaker in Bosnia, I have more privileges than disadvantages. I feel I can do more than my male colleagues with a motherly approach rather than a male approach.
It depends on the situation. I mean, on one hand there's the argument that people should be left alone on the other hand, there's the argument to wade in a stop slaughters in places like Bosnia and Kosovo and what we probably should have done in Rwanda.
Just because I've got blonde hair and haven't been to Bosnia doesn't mean I'm a bimbo. I am still a serious journalist.
Everything changed in Bosnia, when General Wesley Clark proved that you could fight a war with high- level precision air strikes and a bare minimum of ground action.
There's probably one more story about Bosnia that I'd like to do, because I spent a fair amount of time on the Serb side of the lines, which isn't apparent in the other books.
When I went to Bosnia, I was there to tell someone else's story and I was more methodical.
I don't think that what's going on in Bosnia is political activity. It's partly political, but it's partly atavistic as well.
I had my life threatened by Bosnian Serbs on numerous occasions.
I think that's the main threat in Bosnia and Rwanda and Zaire. There doesn't seem to be much willingness to engage these problems unless they directly affect national security interests.
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.
