Quote of the day: Buffy Summers on pain

In the Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode "Earshot," Buffy accidentally obtains the power of telepathy. That seems really cool until Buffy starts hearing the thoughts of her classmates constantly -- all their worries, desires, thoughts. It's too much, the burden of knowing everyone's feelings.

She hears a voice in the school cafeteria threatening to kill everyone. Buffy is convinced that a student is planning mass murder. She sees Jonathan in a tower with a gun and confronts him. Buffy points out that he has all this pain and feelings and he's being ignored. Jonathan doesn't think Buffy would understand since she's beautiful and athletic. Then Buffy responds with the following speech:

You are an idiot. My life happens to, on occasion, suck beyond the telling of it. Sometimes more than I can handle. And it's not just mine. Every single person down there is ignoring your pain because they're too busy with their own... The beautiful ones. The popular ones. The guys that pick on you. Everyone... If you could hear what they were feeling. The loneliness. The confusion. It looks quiet down there. It's not. It's deafening.