Jed Perl writes precisely and ecstatically. Antoine' s Alphabet is a history and a fairy tale, a work of criticism, and a work of art.

[...]It is as if after surviving so much, there was no longer reason to survive.

None of the ways people were talking about September 11 felt right to me. I don't buy into the way George W. Bush talks about it. I don't buy into the way the 9/11 commission talks about it. It isn't that I don't believe them. It's just that they're not the tellings for me.

Something having been done just about everywhere just about always is no kind of justification for doing it now.

And the general shot my sister. I could not look at her, but I remember the sound of when she hit the ground. I hear that sound when things hit the ground still. Anything.' If I could, I would make it so nothing ever hit the ground again.

She was so beautiful, like someone who you will never meet, but always dream of meeting, like someone who is too good for you.

Few people sufficiently appreciate the colossal task of feeding a world of billions of omnivores who demand meat with their potatoes.