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Quote by William D. Brown

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William D. Brown

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“Maybe from as early as when you're five or six, there's been a whisper going at the back of your head, saying: “One day, maybe not so long from now, you'll get to know how it feels.” So you're waiting, even if you don't quite know it, waiting for the moment when you realise that you really are different to them; that there are people out there, like Madame, who don't hate you or wish you any harm, but who nevertheless shudder at the very thought of you – of how you were brought into this world and why – and who dread the idea of your hand brushing against theirs. The first time you glimpse yourself through the eyes of a person like that, it's a cold moment. It's like walking past a mirror you've walked past every day of your life, and suddenly it shows you something else, something troubling and strange.”

PerceptionSelf AwarenessRejectionOutsiders
Book:Never Let Me Go
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“Institutionalized rejection of difference is an absolute necessity in a profit economy which needs outsiders as surplus people. As members of such an economy, we have all been programmed to respond to the human difference between us with fear and loathing and to handle that difference in one of three ways: ignore it, and if that is not possible, copy it if we think it is dominant, or destroy it if we think it is subordinate. But we have no patterns for relating across our human differences as equals. As a result, those differences have been misnamed and misused in the service of separation and confusion.”

CapitalismProfitRejectionOutsidersDifferenceDifferences Between PeopleInstitutionalized
Book:Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches
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“So it was with the various eccentrics she discovered in the next years. Some she went home with, some she didn't; some she photographed, others she just talked to, but everyone impressed her. Like the irate lady who appeared to Diane one night pulling a kiddy's red express wagon trimmed with bells and filled with cats in fancy hats and dresses. Like the man in Brooklyn who called himself the Mystic Barber who teleported himself to Mars and said he was dead and wore a copper band around his forehead with antennae on it to receive instructions from the Martians. Or the lady in the Bronx who trained herself to eat and sleep underwater or the black who carried a rose and noose around with him at all times, or the person who invented a noiseless soup spoon, or the man from New Jersey who'd collected string for twenty years, winding it into a ball that was now five feet in diameter, sitting monstrous and splendid in his living room.”

ArtPhotographyNew York CityOutsidersEccentrics
Book:Diane Arbus: A Biography
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“Това бяха семейства без корени, родени някъде и отраснали никъде. Нямаха връзка с Рейтвердегем, нито пък желаеха да имат; причината да се преместят тук бяха само и единствено наличните още терени – парцелите в града бяха поскъпнали или бяха станали рядкост. Нито веднъж тези хора не се представиха на новите си съседи, не посещаваха нито празненствата, нито кръчмите им, не се включваха в инициативите им. Страняха от панаирите им, за по-сигурно си влагаха парите в банката, а не като местните – в касичка, нарочена за кръчмите, която щом се напълнеше достатъчно, се пропиваше за една мимолетна нощ. Новите ни гледаха недоверчиво, докато се прибирахме традиционно нафиркани, или се спотайваха уплашени, докато млатехме нервните си жени или мятахме част от обзавеждането през прозореца. Ала ако някой беше снимал предаване за нас, онези щяха да седнат пред телевизора.”

OutsidersFamily Values
Author:Dimitri Verhulst
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“Fakhruddin ‘Iraqi produced one of the most exquisite commentaries on Ibn ‘Arabi’s doctrine of Love. This great poet-scholar had initially been associated with wondering qalandars, a group of outsiders who disregarded social norms and incurred the wrath of the orthodox community.”

OrthodoxOutsidersSocial NormsFakhruddin IraqiQalandars
Book:The Sun at Midnight: The Revealed Mysteries of the Ahlul Bayt Sufis
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