Pains And Heartbreaks

You think your pains and heartbreaks are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read. It was books that taught me that the things that tormented me were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive, or who have ever been alive.

-- James Baldwin (1924-1987), African-American novelist, short story writer, playwright and essayist, The New York Times, 1 June 1964