The invisible are always so resolutely invisible, until you see them. - Jonathan Lethem

...Don't rupture another's illusion unless you're positive the alternative you offer is more worthwhile than that from which you're wrenching them. Interrogate your solipsism: Does it offer any better a home than the delusions you're reaching to shatter?

I’d never pondered the bourgeois implications of an earplug.

I am relaxed. It's just buried under layers of incredulity and panic. But underneath those I'm very relaxed.