your culture has become sophisticated, like a computer, or a drug that you take for a headache. You can use it, but you cannot explain how it works. Certainly not to girls who stack up their firewood against the side of the house.

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

My paternal grandmother drove ambulances during the regional Blitz, in Birmingham.

Psychiatry in this place is like serving an in-flight meal in the middle of a plane crash. If I wanted to make you well, as a doctor, I should be giving you a parachute, not a cheese-and-pickle sandwich.

So when I say that I am a refugee, you must understand that there is no refuge.

Horror in your country is something you take a dose of to remind yourself that you are not suffering from it.

We don't know our hearts until life puts us to the test, and WWII fascinates because it was the last time everyone was simultaneously pushed to their limit.