- All's Well That Ends Well
- Antony and Cleopatra
- As You Like It
- The Comedy of Errors
- Coriolanus
- Cymbeline
- Hamlet
- Henry IV, Part 1
- Henry IV, Part 2
- Henry V
- Henry VI, Part 1
- Henry VI, Part 2
- Henry VI, Part 3
- Henry VIII
- Julius Caesar
- King John
- King Lear
- Love's Labor's Lost
- A Lover's Complaint
- Macbeth
- Measure for Measure
- The Merchant of Venice
- The Merry Wives of Windsor
- A Midsummer Night's Dream
- Much Ado About Nothing
- Othello
- Pericles
- The Rape of Lucrece
- Richard II
- Richard III
- Romeo and Juliet
- Shakespeare's Sonnets
- The Taming of the Shrew
- The Tempest
- Timon of Athens
- Titus Andronicus
- Troilus and Cressida
- Twelfth Night
- The Two Gentlemen of Verona
- Venus and Adonis
- The Winter's Tale
This quotation marks the first mention of the novel's titular "Small Things" in those exact words, as the Ipes pick up Sophie Mol and Margaret Kochamma from the airport. Though there are many unspoken tensions in this important moment—like Chacko's divorce from Margaret Kochamma, the idealized whiteness of Sophie Mol compared to the twins, and Mammachi's jealous hatred of Margaret Kochamma—the only words spoken are small talk.
As Roy suggests here, this is not a phenomenon unique to the Ipe family—it is human nature to cling to the Small Things at "times like these," particularly in tense or uncomfortable family…