“You begin to realize that everyone has a tragedy, and that if he doesn’t, he will. You recognize how much is hidden behind the small courtesies and civilities of everyday existence. Deep sorrow and traces of great loss run through everyone’s lives, and yet they let others step into the elevator first, wave them ahead in a line of traffic, smile and greet their children and inquire about their lives, and never let on for a second that they, too, have lain awake at night in longing and regret, that they, too, have cried until it seemed impossible that one person could hold so many tears, that they, too, keep a picture of someone locked in their heart and bring it out in quiet, solitary moments to caress and remember.

Loss is the great unifier, the terrible club to which we all eventually belong.”

-Rosanne Cash, from her memoir Composed, a birthday gift from Cinnamon.

“She wonders whether the sentences go out looking for people to utter them, or whether it’s just the opposite and the sentences simply wait for someone to come along and make use of them, and at the same time she wonders if she really doesn’t have anything better to do than wonder about such things, what silliness, she thinks, and then she remembered that she doesn’t have anything better to do….

Probably, she thinks, the sentences all get overtaken sooner or later and are spoken by someone or other, somewhere or other….”

-from Visitation, by Jenny Erpenbeck (translated by Susan Bernofsky)