ABRAMS Press

The glory of show business is that it gives the people what they want. The glory of art is that it gives us what we never knew we wanted.

You will find that things that seem normal to you don’t seem normal to others, and might even be utterly reprehensible. Perhaps we are all evil. Or, perhaps none of us are.

WE LOVE KILLING. Which is great, because we need to kill to survive. Hungry? Kill something to eat. Sick? Kill the bacteria before they kill you. Threatened by something? Kill in self-defence. Not sure what it is? Kill it, just in case.

The initial doctor–patient relationship must provide that, and instil a feeling of confidence that the doctor will be able to help and do the right thing, and take away the pain of injury.

Most people imitate whatever everyone else is doing. They follow a script and re

recite lines we’ve heard hundreds of times, lines somebody else wrote.”

hey’re afraid that if they really express themselves, someone might not like them. And they’re incredibly scared of someone not liking them.” Dad would shake his head and say, “It’s ridiculous.”

Anthropologists and psychologists know that the weirdest thing you can imag

as been considered perfectly normal in at least one culture sometime in world history.”

om and Dad mostly sided with me against the other kids and teachers, but that was only because they mostly thought I was right. When they thought I was being unfair, closed-minded, or hypocritical, they’d tell me that too. It was the criticism that convinced me they were really listening, that made me feel like I