I often wonder how much of the things I experience are shared. They're so vivid and all-encompassing and beautiful and terrible, and yet people never speak of them. I like to think it's the difficulty of expressing them, or maybe everyone is secretly embarrassed and feels like they need to somehow keep them under wraps, as if they'll spill them and suddenly be exposed for the human they are.

That's part of why I love literature so much, it's a profoundly social experience, more social than socialising. You get to see someone's soul and see that for the million ways they're different, they're exactly the same as you inside. That every part of you that feels unique is just another inheritance.