Small Things Like These

• Dia a dia irlandês, com princípios cristãos, família comum, reflexão bonita perto do Natal, mensagem final muito legal e surpreendente.

• “Always it was the same, Furlong thought; always they carried mechanically on without pause, to the next job at hand. What would life be like, he wondered, if they were given time to think and reflect over things? Might their lives be different or much the same – or would they just lose the run of themselves? Even while he’d been creaming the butter and sugar, his mind was not so much upon the here and now and on this Sunday nearing Christmas with his wife and daughters so much as on tomorrow and who owed what, and how and when he’d deliver what was ordered and what man he’d leave to which task, and how and where he’d collect what was owed – and before tomorrow was coming to an end, he knew his mind would already be working in much the same way, yet again, over the day that was to follow.”

  p. 21

• “Before long, he caught a hold of himself and concluded that nothing ever did happen again; to each was given days and chances which wouldn't come back around. And wasn't it sweet to be where you were and let it remind you of the past for once, despite the upset, instead of always looking on into the mechanics of the days and the trouble ahead, which might never come.”

  p. 28

• “The next year, when he'd won first prize for spelling and was given a wooden pencil-case whose sliding top doubled as a ruler, Mrs Wilson had rubbed the top of his head and praised him, as though he was one of her own. 'You're a credit to yourself,' she'd told him. And for a whole day or more, Furlong had gone around feeling a foot taller, believing, in his heart, that he mattered as much as any other child.”

  p. 29

• “'Heavy is the head that wears the crown.'”

  p. 97

• “the worst that could have happened was also already behind him; the thing not done, which could have been – which he would have had to live with for the rest of his life.”

  p. 114

Da mesma textura

assombrado · silencioso · sem pressa · compacto