" Yes, imagine looking like another person. Perhaps that was what we should do more often. Put yourself in their shoes was a familiar piece of advice, but it might be particularised into Imagine looking like her. That brought it home, because that was often the issue with how the world treated people. If you stood out, you were vulnerable. If you were excessively overweight, or very small, or if you walked in an odd way, then people treated you differently from the way they treated those who were none of those things. They might not do that so readily if they could imagine what it was to be you. And although there was no reason why the way you looked should be you, that was the way in which the world tended to see things. The way you looked could be taken as you, whatever was going on inside. "

― Alexander McCall Smith , The Geometry of Holding Hands (Isabel Dalhousie #13)