From The Fever (of which I will eventually perform entirely in song) by Wallace Shawn:And now the ugly little book is back at Chapter One, and I read it again, and Chapter Two, and I read it again, and the water bugs still cover the floor, running in the same complicated patterns, but I brush a few aside and lie down among them. I listen to the strange pounding in my ears. And it's as if a voice like vomit is coming up slowly from my throat. Stop! Everyone has always been so good to me. No. Listen. I want to tell you something. You've misinterpreted everything. The old woman who bent down and gave you sugar-covered buns did not love you. You were not loved the way you thought. Of course I still feel an affection for myself—someone so happy, cute, funny—?— No, I'm trying to tell you that people hate you. I'm trying to explain to you about the people who hate you. Why do you think that they all love you? And what do you think they would love about you? What are you? There's no charm in you, there's nothing graceful, nothing that yields. You're simply a relentless, unbearable fanatic. Yes, the commando who crawls all night through the mud is much less of a fanatic than you. Look at yourself. Look. You walk so stiffly in your kitchen each morning, you approach your cupboard. You open it, and reach for the coffee, the coffee you expect to find on its shelf. And it has to be there. And if one morning it isn't there—oh, the hysteria!—the entire world will have to pay! At the very thought of the unexpected, the unexpected deprivation, you begin to twitch, to panic, to pant. The shortness of breath! Listen to your voice on the telephone, listen to the tone that comes into your voice when you talk to one of your very close friends and you talk about your life and you use those expressions—"what I need to live on . . ."—"the amount I need . . ."—solemn, quiet, no histrionics—the tone of hysteria, the tone of the fanatic—well, yes—of course—it makes sense. You understand your situation. Without a place to live, without clothes, without money, you would be like them, you would be them, you would be what they are—you would be the homeless, you would be the comfortless. So of course, you know it, you will do anything. There are no limits to what you will do. Without the money, your face would become the face of a rat, your hands would be paws—sharp, nimble, ready to scratch, ready to tear.