Excerpts from "On Compassion" by Barbara LAzear Ascher

"As he crosses Manhattan's Seventy-ninth Street, his gait is the shuffle of the forgotten ones held in place by gravity rather in plans."

"Raw humanity offends our sensibilities. We want to protect ourselves from an awareness of rags with voices that make no sense and scream forth in inarticulate rage. We do not wish to be reminded of the tentative state of our own well-being and sanity."

"Ladies in high-heeled shoes pick their way through poverty and madness."