When Bach died some of his children sold his scores to the butcher they had decided the paper was more useful for wrapping meat. In a small village in Germany a father brought home a limp goose wrapped in paper that was covered with strange and beautiful symbols.

It's tempting to imagine how we could hurt someone close, because it reminds us how fiercely we love them.

Reading reassures us that no matter how alone we might feel, there are many others - spread as wide as history itself - who have felt the same way we have, who have occupied the rooms we find ourselves locked in at various points of our lives.

Actually, years mean nothing. It's what's inside them.

Whether you know it or not, we leave parts of ourselves wherever we go.

Royal Young's writing is that rare blend of irony and beauty.

Life just swallows you up, doesn't it?Just swallows you up with its everyday things