It's very important to go back and keep in mind the distinction between handling these events as criminal acts which was the way we did before 9/11 and then looking at 9/11 and saying 'This is not a criminal act ' not when you destroy 16 acres of Manhattan kill 3 000 Americans blow a big hole in the Pentagon. That's an act of war.

For many years it seemed as if nothing changed in Norway. You could leave the country for three months travel the world through coups d'etat assassinations famines massacres and tsunamis and come home to find that the only new thing in the newspapers was the crossword puzzle.

When I was little we lived on 8 acres and my mom had a horse. But when I was 7 my mom kicked my dad out and then in order to feed us five kids she got critters cheap or for free and raised them for food. We milked a cow raised chickens pigs and beef cattle. We heated our one-story house with wood and stayed cold all winter.

In its history Europe has committed so many massacres and horrors that it should bow its own head in shame.

We can be thankful to a friend for a few acres or a little money and yet for the freedom and command of the whole earth and for the great benefits of our being our life health and reason we look upon ourselves as under no obligation.

But I am Armenian and I understand what it is to lose a country and lose a family and have massacres and genocides and everything against my people.

I write for no other purpose than to add to the beauty that now belongs to me. I write a book for no other reason than to add three or four hundred acres to my magnificent estate.