...I am a writer, not a prophet or political analyst. Like everyone else, I am groping in this darkness. From a writer, people expect a wise word or a joke. But what can one say when what is happening blunts the few thoughts that one has? I try to overcome the uncertainty by working every day...It is hard to be with oneself when everything around is burning.

-Aharon Appelfeld, Israeli writer & Holocaust survivor

(From The New Yorker's Talk of the Town, one week after)