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“Long ago he'd assigned a private name to it. The hit-thumb theory. on his grandfather's rood as a child one summer, hammering tiles down hard, he'd discovered that if you hammered your thumb by mistake, there was a split second when you thought: Hey, this isn't so bad, considering how hard I was hit... And then—after that moment of false, bewildered, and grateful relief—came the crash and crush of real pain.” — Elizabeth Strout
Long ago he'd assigned a private name to it. The hit-thumb theory. on his grandfather's rood as a child one summer, hammering tiles down hard, he'd discovered that if you hammered your thumb by mistake, there was a split second when you thought: Hey, this isn't so bad, considering how hard I was hit... And then—after that moment of false, bewildered, and grateful relief—came the crash and crush of real pain.