Anything Is Possible (Amgash #2)

by Elizabeth Strout

as he saw this happen he had felt—undeniably—what he could only think was the presence of God, and he understood why angels had always been portrayed as having wings, because there had been a sensation of that—of a rushing sound, or not even a sound, and then it was as though God, who had no face, but was God, pressed up against him and conveyed to him without words—so briefly, so fleetingly—some message that Tommy understood to be: It’s all right, Tommy.

People could surprise you. Not just their kindness, but also their sudden ability to express things the right way.

“God weeps with us,” he had said, and you couldn’t get mad at him for that.

she saw Shelly Small as a woman who suffered only from the most common complaint of all: Life had simply not been what she thought it would be.

To listen to a person is not passive. To really listen is active, and Dottie had really listened.

And yet Dottie had felt for her small—yes, Small—moments of human sadness.

What puzzled Abel about life was how much one forgot but then lived with anyway—like phantom limbs, he supposed.