A Lucky Child is an extraordinary story, simply and beautifully told. Heartbreaking and thrilling, it examines what it means to be human, in every good and awful sense. Perhaps most amazingly of all, Thomas Buergenthal remembers and renders the small mysteries and grand passions of childhood, even a childhood lived under the most horrific circumstances.

Librarian like Stewardess, Certified Public Accountant, Used Car Salesman is one of those occupations that people assume attract a certain deformed personality.

As for me, I believe that if there's a God - and I am as neutral on the subject as is possible - then the most basic proof of His existence is black humor. What else explains it, that odd, reliable comfort that billows up at the worst moments, like a beautiful sunset woven out of the smoke over a bombed city.

The idea of a library full of books, the books full of knowledge, fills me with fear and love and courage and endless wonder.

I believe marriage is a spectator sport.

You can't out-travel sadness. I travel not to get away from my troubles but to see how they look in front of famous buildings

And while I was not an admirer of people in the specific, I liked them in the abstract. It is only the execution of the idea that disappoints.