How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Part.Paragraph)
Quote #4
The TV was blaring in the background, riot police storming the front entrance of a house. You couldn't see what they were shooting at inside. The official report blamed the violence on "pro-Western extremists." (2.7.12)
We'll call Saladin's response the "fill in the blank" method. Take the thing you fear—here, the unknown—and identify it with something you hate, like pro-Western extremists. While not at all accurate, the method sure seems to make Saladin feel better.
Quote #5
Secrecy is a vacuum and nothing fills a vacuum like paranoid speculation. (3.1.2)
You know how they say, "you fear what you don't understand"? Well, that's basically the idea here, only written with a more artistic spin.
Quote #6
The only rule that ever made sense to me I learned from a history, not an economics, professor at Wharton. "Fear," he used to say, "fear is the most valuable commodity in the universe." That blew me away. […] Fear of aging, fear of loneliness, fear of poverty, fear of failure, Fear is the most basic emotion we have. Fear is primal. Fear sells. (3.3.3)
Breckinridge Scott links his dubious entrepreneurial exploits to fear. He who fears, buys. And he who buys, um, spends money?