Page 56
“He's like... a symbol of the past for us to hold onto as we push into the future. He's nothing. No substance. But having him there, the latest in a two-and-a-half-century-long line of American presidents make people feel that the country, the culture they grew up with is still here--that we’ll get through these bad times and back to normal.”
P. 56
Bubonic plague→ survivors taking vacant land→ demanding pay for services → changing by burning down.
P.58
“We can stop denying reality or hoping it will go away by magic.”
P.59
From Joanne (conventional friend)
“Tell me what I can do that won’t get me in trouble or make everyone think I’m crazy. Just tell me something.”
P.61
“If we don’t talk about bad things, maybe they won’t happen.”
P.65
“It’s better to teach people than to scare them, Lauren. If you scare them and nothing happens, they lose their fear, and you lose some of your authority with them. It’s harder to scare them a second time, harder to teach them, harder to win back their trust. Best to begin by teaching.”
P.76
“Sometimes naming a thing--giving it a name or discovering its name--helps one to begin to understand it.”
P.125
“I’m trying to be clear. I’m not interested in being fancy, or even original. Clarity and truth will be plenty, if I can only achieve them. If it happens that there are other people outside somewhere preaching my truth, I’ll join them. Otherwise, I’ll adapt where I must take what opportunities I can find or make, hang on, gather students, and teach.”
P.143
“People are setting fires to do what our arsonist did last night--to get the neighbors of the arson victim to leave their own homes unguarded. People are setting fires to get rid of whomever they dislike from personal enemies to anyone who looks or sounds foreign or racially different. People are setting fires because they’re frustrated, angry, hopeless. They have no power to improve their lives, but they have the power to make others even more miserable. And the only way to prove to yourself that you have power is to use it.”
P. 196
“Embrace diversity. Unite--or be divided., robbed, ruled, killed/By those who see you as prey. Embrace diversity or be destroyed.”
P.219
“Worship is no good without action. With action, it’s only useful if it steadies you, focuses your efforts, eases your mind.”
P. 228
“It’s odd, but I don’t think anyone on the road would have thought of attacking that community en masse like that if the earthquake -or something- had not started a fire. One small fire was the weakness that gave scavengers permission to devastate the community--which they were no doubt doing now.”