“My mother was a woman of incredible personal courage and integrity whose political views proved to be much more lucid and prophetic than my father’s, but from day to day she was no fun to be with. She expected only the worst. If she sent me to the corner grocery for a bottle of milk she would fret and imagine every awful thing happening to me and was astonished to see me return safe and sound. The horrors of war left a much bigger impact on her than on the rest of us.” – Charles Simic, “The Art of Poetry,” Paris Review