They all wore the slack-bored expression of folks doomed to spend all of eternity on an infinitely long supermarket checkout line. - Adam-Troy Castro

What Nancy Peabody can be blamed for was actually behaving like a crowbar, designed to pry open the locked places belonging to others. Not that she was interested in stealing material things. No, her sin was much more insidious than that. She thought everybody in the whole wide world was obligated to rearrange their lives to avoid doing anything that ran even a miniscule chance of offending her. That included reading the wrong books, seeing the wrong movies, wearing the wrong clothes, worshiping the wrong God, enjoying the wrong kind of sex, learning the wrong kind of knowledge, thinking the wrong kind of thoughts, and – most importantly, for our narrative’s sake – making music with the wrong kind of instruments. Nancy had spent her entire adult life pitilessly crusading against the right of anybody anywhere within her line of assault, to have even a thimble’s worth of fun without her approval. And because there were unfortunately all too many people running around who were (except for the regrettable crowbar-shaped nose) exactly like her, and were willing to support her in her various crusades, she was much more successful than she deserved to be. Before long, people who enjoyed things she didn’t begin wearing a hunted, apprehensive look similar to that worn by the lead cow entering the slaughterhouse.

It was stupid to feel fear. Fear was nothing but the body’s involuntary response to perceived threats. Fear increased heartbeat, respiration, and perspiration; fear clouded the mind and paralyzed the limbs, and I’m going to die wasn’t subject to logical arguments about its counterproductivity.

Talent’s cheap…historically, one of the cheapest things you can buy. And considering the sheer amount of angst you carry around on your back, you need it. After all, angst from a Talented person is fascinating; angst from a Common Everyday Nobody is just an annoyance.