Each one of us is alone in the world… We seek pitifully to convey to others the treasures of our heart, but they have not the power to accept them, and so we go lonely, side by side but not together, unable to know our fellows and unknown by them. – W. Somerset Maugham, The Moon and Sixpence, 1919

My life should be unique; it should be an alms, a battle, a conquest, a medicine. – Ralph Waldo Emerson, Self-Reliance

What an odd, ruminating, noisy, self-interrupting conversation we conduct with ourselves from birth to death. – Diane Ackerman, An Alchemy of Mind: The Marvel and Mystery of the Brain

All men are sculptors, constantly chipping away the unwanted parts of their lives, trying to create their idea of a masterpiece. – Eddie Murphy, 1979