From "Old God's Time" by Sebastian Barry
"He was struck again by the strangeness of people, their mystery, but also their recognisability. He felt he knew these people immediately, which to him suggested a certain homogeneity among humankind. A general familiarity. As if there were only ten different varieties of soul after all...

...He had often thought that, in his dealings as a copper. And yet if he had been put on the rack to tell the truth, he had also to allow that they were intensely individual. So that they were known to him instantly, but also not, and possibly never to be known."