“Glad to hear it.” Slothrop is smiling. You’re on my list too, pal. This
smile asks from him more grace than anything in his languid American
life ever has, up till now. Grace he always imagined himself short on. But
it’s working. He’s surprised, and so grateful that he almost starts crying
then. The best part of all is not that Bounce appears fooled by the smile,
but that Slothrop knows now that it will work for him again….

—-Thomas Pynchon, Gravity’s Rainbow

Thanksgiving Square Chapel, Dallas, Texas, 2003