Laughter does not deny pain. Laughter - like a wail - acknowledges and replies to pain.

Storytelling is the essential human activity. The harder the situation, the more essential it is.

That's what fiction is for. It's for getting at the truth when the truth isn't sufficient for the truth.

I cannot remember much, I cannot feel much. Maybe erasure is necessary. Maybe the human spirit defends itself as the body does, attacking infection, enveloping and destroying those malignancies that would otherwise consume us.

A miracle to confound natural law, a baffling reversal of the inevitable consequences . . . a miracle. . . . An act of high imagination -- daring and lurid and impossible. Yes, a cartoon of the mind.

What happened, and what might have happened?

In any war story, but especially a true one, it's difficult to separate what happened from what seemed to happen.