We touched with a softness that pushed through the skin into memory, like arms plunged into a river - we could feel the weight of each other's stones.

Should you ever feel too lonely...listen for the roar of the sea- for in it are all those who've been and all those who are to come.

It's true the people we meet shape us. But the people we don't meet shape us also, often more because we have imagined them so vividly. There are people we yearn for but never seem to meet.

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

In the end I didn't know who I was crying for, but it was something my body wanted to do, as though trying to digest grief.

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.

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