“...it is not really the difference the oppressor fears so much as the similarity. He fears he will discover in himself the same aches, the same longings as those of the people he has shit on... . He fears he will have to change his life once he has seen himself in the bodies of the people he has called different.”

“He felt beyond himself. He felt for the first time in his adult life a shadow of fear in his heart--fear for her, for what he actually wanted from her--and for himself, for what he might do.”

“His life has been lived, so far, within narrow limits and he is quite naïve about most kinds of experience; he fears it and yet is wildly eager for it. To reassure himself, he converts it into epic myth as fast as it happens. He is forever play-acting.”

“See, Batman is different. He's mortal. He's got a real life to risk. Superman just has to avoid Kryptonite. Big deal. Superman fears nothing because outside a few very specific circumstances where he might encounter some stupid rock, nothing can possibly do him in. Batman has the same vulnerabilities as the rest of us, so he has the same fears as us. That's why he's the most courageous: because he can put those aside and fight on regardless. My point is this: the more you have to lose, the braver you re for standing up. That's why Batman is superior to Superman, and that's why I am infinitely smarter then you.'I am a genius. I have won.'Pffft! Whatever. I'll bet Batman won't be too loud about his superiority when Superman is belting seven shades of shit out of him.”

“Mr. Malfoy is new to the business of having ideas, and so when he has one, he becomes proud of himself for having it. He has not yet had enough ideas to unflinchingly discard those that are beautiful in some aspects and impractical in others; he has not yet acquired confidence in his own ability to think of better ideas as he requires them. What we are seeing here is not Mr. Malfoy's best idea, I fear, but rather his only idea.”

“And often he who has chosen the fate of the artist because he felt himself to be different soon realizes that he can maintain neither his art nor his difference unless he admits that he is like the others. The artist forges himself to the others, midway between the beauty he cannot do without and the community he cannot tear himself away from.”