Tony and Alice Talk About Courage, Explained：castles in the air

What's really going on

The scene is Tony's confession, dressed up as a talk about philosophy. He admires the Sycamores because "in their own way, they've found what everybody's looking for," and immediately turns the lesson on himself: most people are too afraid to live, and so is he. His college story — a real idea about capturing the sun's energy — ends with his friend selling cars and himself in banking, and the line he uses to name the failure is almost a title: "that's his excuse for lack of courage." When Alice supplies his own excuse, the Kirby family tradition, he does not argue. The flirting at the end, about the back of his head, is really the answer to all of it.

Theme

このチャプターで学べること

• Tony hides regret inside a light dinner chat.
• Dreams need courage before they need money.
• Teasing a date is its own kind of intimacy.
• A college idea becomes a career he never chose.

発音のポイント

• knocked me — The d in knocked blends into me, so it sounds like knock-me.
• what made the — Link what, made and the; they run together in fast speech.
• get used to — In speech used to often blurs into useta, so listen for the whole chunk.