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.

I had never wanted to be one of those girls in love with boys who would not have me. Unrequited love - plain desperate aboveboard boy-chasing - turned you into a salesperson, and what you were selling was something he didn't want, couldn't use, would never miss. Unrequited love was deciding to be useless, and I could never abide uselessness. Neither could James. He understood. In such situations, you do one of two things - you either walk away and deny yourself, or you do sneaky things to get what you need. You attend weddings, you go for walks. You say, yes. Yes, you're my best friend, too.

but you can't spend your whole life hoping people will ask you the right questions. you must learn to love and answer the questions they already ask.

Grief lasts longer than sympathy, which is one of the tragedies of the grieving.

Enough fine weather and money and a few memorable meals make any place desirable.

I come from food the way some people come from money. Food was the medium I grew up in, what we talked about, what shaped our days.

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.