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.

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

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

We see in others what we want and what we fear.

I wonder if things can happen too early or too late or if everything happens at exactly the right time. If so, how sad and beautiful.

Language allows us to reach out to people, to touch them with our innermost fears, hopes, disappointments, victories. To reach out to people we'll never meet. It's the greatest legacy you could ever leave your children or your loved ones: The history of how you felt.

Language is like looking at a map of somewhere. Love is living there and surviving on the land.