There’s a hazardous sadness to the first sounds of someone else’s work in the morning; it is as if stillness experiences pain in being broken. The first minute of the workday reminds you of all the other minutes that a day consists of, and it’s never a good thing to think of minutes as individuals. Only after other minutes have joined the naked, lonely first minutes does the day become more safely integrated in its dayness.
Jonathan Franzen. Freedom. 158.
My favorite passage of that book. I liked it, but wasn’t blown away by the book as a whole. This part, though, is pure genius.
Thoughts?