“He who refuses to submit is at once labelled "queer," "different," and decried as a disturbing element in the comfortable stagnancy of modern life.”

— Emma Goldman

"The Individual, Society and the State" (1940) http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/goldman/works/1940/individual.htm
Context: The strongest bulwark of authority is uniformity; the least divergence from it is the greatest crime. The wholesale mechanisation of modern life has increased uniformity a thousandfold. It is everywhere present, in habits, tastes, dress, thoughts and ideas. Its most concentrated dullness is "public opinion." Few have the courage to stand out against it. He who refuses to submit is at once labelled "queer," "different," and decried as a disturbing element in the comfortable stagnancy of modern life.

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Emma Goldman 109

anarchist known for her political activism, writing, and sp… 1868–1940

Banksy pseudonymous England-based graffiti artist, political activist, and painter

“Good fiction’s job is to comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable.”

David Foster Wallace (1962–2008) American fiction writer and essayist

An Interview by Larry McCaffery
Essays
Variant: I had a teacher I liked who used to say good fiction’s job was to comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable.

“It was a queer, disturbing instant of recognition. We all create monsters in our minds. The only important difference may be which of us let our monsters become real.”

David Brin book Earth

Part III (pp. 145-146)
Earth (1990)

“When Man evolved Pity, he did a queer thing — deprived himself of the power of living life as it is without wishing it to become something different.”

John Galsworthy (1867–1933) English novelist and playwright

Letter to Thomas Hardy (27 March 1910)

“It looked queer to me to see boxes labeled 'His Excellency, Jefferson Davis, President of the Confederate States of America'.”

Jefferson Davis (1808–1889) President of the Confederate States of America

David D. Porter, Incidents and Anecdotes of the Civil War https://ia802604.us.archive.org/9/items/incidentsanecdot00port/incidentsanecdot00port.pdf (1885), p. 274.
Context: It looked queer to me to see boxes labeled 'His Excellency, Jefferson Davis, President of the Confederate States of America'. The packages so labeled contained Bass ale or Cognac brandy, which cost 'His Excellency' less than we Yankees had to pay for it. Think of the President drinking imported liquors while his soldiers were living on pop-corn and water!