주어진 위치에서, 어렵지만 할 수 있고 해야만 하는 일을 하는 이들로 인해 우리 사회는 좀 더 살 만해진다고 생각한다. 그런 일들이 단순한 칭찬이나 아니면 개인의 고난으로 끝날 수도 있고 사회의 변혁을 이끌어 낼 수도 있다. 이러한 양심의 목소리나 행동이 묻히지 않는 사회가 되기를 바란다. 소설은 한 선한 인간의 내면을 잘 그려낸다. 거창하지는 않아도, 나부터, 사소하지만 의미 있는 친절과 배려를 실천할 수 있기를...
As they carried on along and met more people Furlong did and did not know, he found himself asking was there any point in being alive without helping one another? Was it possible to carry on along through all the years, the decades, through an entire life, without once being brave enough to go against what was there and yet call yourself a Christian, and face yourself in the mirror? (p. 108)
He thought of Mrs Wilson, of her daily kindnesses, of how she had corrected and encouraged him, of the small things she had said and done and had refused to do and say and what she must have known, the things which, when added up, amounted to a life. Had it not been for her, his mother might very well have wound up in that place. In an earlier time, it could have been his own mother he was saving - if saving was what this could be called. And only God knew what would have happened to him, where he might have ended up. (p. 109)