:What we hear others say. - Octavia E. Butler

If everyone could feel everyone else’s pain, who would torture?

I didn't want to scare you. We don't want to scare anyone."
"No? Well, sometimes it's a good thing to scare people. Sometimes fear is all that will keep them from doing stupid things.

We’ve also been laughed at, argued with, booed, and threatened with hellfire—or gunfire. But Jarret’s kind of religion and Jarret himself are getting less and less popular these days. Both, it seems, are bad for business, bad for the U. S. Constitution, and bad for a large percentage of the population. They always have been, but now more and more people are willing to say so in public. The Crusaders have terrorized some people into silence, but they’ve just made others very angry.