"From my first breath in this world, all I wanted was a good set of lungs and the air to fill them with—given circumstances, you might presume, for an American baby of the twentieth century. ... When I was born to Helen and Jeremiah Land, in 1951, my lungs refused to kick in." (1)

"Real miracles bother people, like strange sudden pains unknown in medical literature." (3)

"I now think of my survival as my father's first miracle." (5)

"He went on pacing—God my witness—walking on air, praying relentlessly ..." (17)

"For the first time the thought ingressed that if the man, my father, beloved by God, could work miracles—if he could walk on air—then fixing my defective lungs ought to be a picnic." (20)

"Once torched by truth, Swede wrote years later, a little thing like faith is easy." (33)

"Be careful whom you choose to...