"Our immune systems, and only our immune systems, prevent us from becoming everyone else all at once. We are who we are only because we defend ourselves every moment of every day. And who we are is everything. We are pieces of others. Portraits painted somewhere between our brains and thymuses. We are the dirt we've eaten and the songs we've song. We are the light of stars and darknesses old beyond imagining. We are at once spontaneous fires and scared water. We are faith and forgiveness. We are our own deaths and we are the eternal thought of others."

- Gerald Callahan in "Faith, Madness, and Spontaneous Human Combustion"