Elizabeth Strout - The Things We Never Say
And now he knew why. Because to say anything real was to say things that nobody wanted to know. Or if they wanted to know, they would not care in the right way. Or even understand.
It was a private thing, to be alive. He understood this now.
In his study of history, he had learned about the leaders, and the various groups involved, but he had somehow missed this fact about every single person: that they held within themselves a vast, unknowable universe.
And he understood that it could make a person lonely; people had to take and give to one another whatever they could. If it was not enough... Well, then it meant one just had to be a grownup.