TransAtlantic

by Colum McCann

This is a human victory over war, the triumph of endurance over memory.

The essence of intelligence was to know when, or if, to expose even the heart’s deep need for instruction.

The incredible happens.

There is always room for at least two truths.

But this is not the story of a life. It is the story of lives, knit together, overlapping in succession, rising again from grave after grave. —WENDELL BERRY, FROM “RISING”