We have for too long been taught that the sight of a man speaking to himself is a sign of eccentricity or madness; we are no longer at all habituated to our own voices, except in conversation or from within the safety of a shouting crowd.
Religion is close to theatre; much of its power comes from the effects of staging and framing.
A mob is not, as is so often said, mindless. A mob is single-minded.
One of the chief characteristics of a mob is its quickness. It is sudden. It pounces.
Punitive murder by the police and by vigilantes has existed in all societies at some point, and probably still exists in most.
Throughout his career, W.G. Sebald wrote poems that were strikingly similar to his prose. His tone, in both genres, was always understated but possessed of a mournful grandeur.