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| Trenton Lee Stewart. The Mysterious Benedict Society. New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2007. |
Of the four of them, Sticky was the only one to have a memory of family life. Was it worse for him, Reynie wondered, to have felt loved and then rejected? Or was it worse to have always felt alone? (p 255)Probably in my freshman or sophomore year in college. We were walking along the campus, me and my classmate, who, if memory serves me right, was a beautiful, stylish Philosophy and Business major. She could be wearing pinstripe pants. She asked, "Let's say you wanted something so bad. And you were only given two choices: to either have it once then never again or never have it at all. Which would you choose?"
I thought the question was preposterous. Of course, obviously, I would rather have tasted and lost that which I desire than not to have tasted it at all. Besides, how would you know if something is truly good if you haven't had any experience of it?
Years later I see her wisdom.
