... and suddenly everyone become the best version of themselves

"'Wouldn't it be kind of cool,' he said, 'if time stopped right now?'
'How do you mean, if time stopped?'
'Like this. I was in England once, taking my father to see my grandmother, who was dying of emphysema. So, one morning we were on a train headed from London to wherever, when suddenly the train stopped with our car halfway inside a tunnel, and then the conductor turned off the train and an announcement came on that we were to observe two minutes of silence, and everyone went still and looked at their laps, even the soccer hooligans and their cellphones -- and it was like the universe had suddenly turned itself off and the world was almost holy, like life was suddenly religious, but good religious, and suddenly everyone became the best version of themselves."

. . . Douglas Coupland . . . Player One . . . page 20 . . . 2010