All that each person is, 
and experiences, 
and shall never experience, 
in body and mind, 
all these things are differing expressions of himself and of one root, 
and are identical: 
and 
not one of these things 
nor one of these persons 
is ever quite to be duplicated, 
nor replaced, 
nor has it ever quite had precedent: 
but 
each is a new and incommunicably tender life, 
wounded in every breath 
and almost as hardly killed as easily wounded: 
sustaining, 
for a while, 
without defense, 
the enormous assaults of the universe. 
~ James Agee