“He didn't like it all that much when he first came - all the rubbish and the rush - but it was growing on him, it wasn't half bad. Coming to the city was like entering a tunnel, he said, and finding to your surprise that the light at the end didn't matter; sometimes in fact the tunnel made the light tolerable.”
In this quote from Colum McCann's work, the narrator describes the protagonist's evolving feelings towards the city. Initially, the protagonist did not like the chaos and busyness of the city, but as time went on, he found that it was growing on him. The metaphor of entering a tunnel and finding the light at the end tolerable demonstrates how the city, with all its busyness and hectic pace, was becoming something that the protagonist could accept and even appreciate.
“Rather he consoled himself with the fact that, in the real world, when he looked closely into the darkness he might find the presence of a light, damaged and bruised, but a little light all the same.”
“That he'd see the light and it'd still be in a tunnel.”
“What Corrigan wanted was a fully believable God, one you could findin the grime of the everyday...he consoled himself with the fact that, in the real world, when he looked closely into the darkness he might find the presence of a light, damaged and bruised, but a little light all the same. He wanted, quite simply, for the world to be a better place, and he was in the habit of hoping for it.”
“He might have been naive, but he didn't care; he said he's rather die with his heart on his sleeve than end up another cynic.”
“Even if people laughed at the notion of goodness, if they found it sentimental, or nostalgic, it didn't matter -- it was non ov those things, he said, and it had to be fought for.”
“It was the dilemma of the watchers: they didn't want to wait around for nothing at all, some idiot standing on the precipice of the towers, but they didn't want to miss the moment either, if he slipped, or got arrested, or dove, arms stretched.”