domingo, 6 de março de 2011

while his mind went off to play on its own

«(...) Jamie Mai was tall and strikingly handsome and so, almost by definition, had the art of a man in charge - until he opened his mouth and betrayed his lack of confidence in everything from tomorrow's sunrise to the future of the human race. Jamie had a habit of stopping midsentence and stammmering - "uh, uh, uh" - as if he was somehow unsettled by his own thought, Charlie Ledley was even worse. He had the pallor of a mortician and the manner of a man bent on putting off, for as long as possible, definite action. Asked a simple question, he'd stare mutely into space, nodding, and blinking like an actor who has forgotten his lines, so that when he finally opened his mouth the sound that emerged caused you to jolt in your chair. It speaks! (...)» (pag. 108)

«(...) Eisman had a curious way of listening; he didn't so much listen to what you were saying as subcontract to some remote region of his brain the task of deciding whether whatever you were saying was worth listening to, while his mind went off to play on its own. As a result, he never actually heard what you said to him the first time you said it. If his mental subcontractor detected a level of interest in what you had just said, it radioed a signal to the mother ship, which then wheeled around with the most intense focus. "Say that again," he'd say. (...)» (pag. 139)

The Big Short, Michael Lewis, onde página sim página não há coisas destas.