“Most distinguishable about the idiot, Hedge noted, was their fear of that which was different. Those who feared difference always made a point of finding difference in others in order to feel more secure in their sameness.”

“Steven wrote to me today, saying, 'Don't you feel like sticking your head out of the window and yelling, "I DON'T KNOW WHAT I'M DOING!!!"' Yes, absolutely. Solidarity. Fear is always the same. Different worries with different scripts, but the same baseline fear.”

“I do not admit that theological points are small points. Theology is only thought applied to religion; and those who prefer a thoughtless religion need not be so very disdainful of others with a more rationalistic taste. The old joke that the Greek sects only differed about a single letter is about the lamest and most illogical joke in the world. An atheist and a theist only differ by a single letter; yet theologians are so subtle as to distinguish definitely between the two.”

“Because people fear those who are different. And fear can make people do stupid things.”

“It was an ignorant perception of the past at which most scoffed, but those who were wiser simply shook their heads in embarrassment knowing similar fears and ignorance confronted them in different forms now.”

“...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.”