People wonder how they are ever going to change their lives, but really it is frighteningly easy.

Still shaking, in the pew, I understood that it isn't the dead we cry for. We cry for ourselves, and I didn't deserve my own pity.

The Daily Mail can't say 'asylum-seeker' without saying 'foreign criminal' in the same sentence. I'm sure it's practically editorial policy.

We leave it up to books and movies to talk about WWII on our behalf.

I think the recent cluster of WWII novels is so good because we have reached an optimal distance from the war. Just as a lens has its focal length, the novel also has its best distance from the action.

I do think it is harder to acknowledge our strengths, or to forgive ourselves and each other for our shortcomings, when there has not been a result we can all agree on. And it is certainly impossible to imagine forgiving the enemy while their animus remains undefeated. Yet war doesn't end with armistice, it only ends with forgiveness and reconciliation.

I'm not happy with just repeating myself.