We who make stories know that we tell lies for a living. But they are good lies that say true things, and we owe it to our readers to build them as b… - Neil Gaiman

And the second thing fiction does is to build empathy. When you watch TV or see a film, you are looking at things happening to other people. Prose fiction is something you build up from 26 letters and a handful of punctuation marks, and you, and you alone, using your imagination, create a world and people it and look out through other eyes. You get to feel things, visit places and worlds you would never otherwise know. You learn that everyone else out there is a me, as well. You're being someone else, and when you return to your own world, you're going to be slightly changed. Empathy is a tool for building people into groups, for allowing us to function as more than self-obsessed individuals. You're also finding out something as you read vitally important for making your way in the world. And it's this: The world doesn't have to be like this. Things can be different.

Sometimes you wake up. Sometimes the fall kills you. And sometimes, when you fall, you fly.

I don't think you should ever insult people unintentionally: if you're doing it, you ought to mean it.