By Any Other Name

by Jodi Picoult

A playwright had taken a fresh, blank sheet of paper and from it, had made three thousand strangers feel.

There was such magic in language. It could bring you to tears, pull you to the edge of your seat, make you sigh with relief. It could draw you out of the world when you needed to escape, and at other times hold up a looking glass to the world as it was.

Emilia understood the true motivation: a play might make its viewers think. And when people thought, instead of blindly following the Gospel, they escaped from your control.