The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time Chapter 197 Quotes
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time Chapter 197 Quotes
How we cite the quotes:
Quote 1
And that made me think that there must be millions of miles of train track in the world and they all go past houses and roads and rivers and fields, and that made me think how many people must be in the world and they all have houses and roads to travel on and cars and pets and clothes and they all eat lunch and go to bed and have names and this made my head hurt, too, so I closed my eyes again and did counting and groaning. (197.34)
This image – of Christopher sitting on a train, watching the towns fly by from behind glass – really shows us how separated he is from what we consider "normal" modern life. It's important to recognize that the life he describes is essentially his own, but the thought that millions of other people are living similar lives is simply overwhelming.
Quote 2
So I climbed onto the middle shelf and I pulled one of the cases across like a door so that I was shut in, and it was dark and there was no one in there with me and I couldn't hear people talking so I felt much calmer and it was nice. (197.47)
Christopher climbs onto the luggage rack on the train. The irony here is that by confining himself into this small space, he escapes from the policeman who's been searching for him. Result? Freedom!
Quote 3
Prime numbers are what is left when you have taken all the patterns away. I think prime numbers are like life. They are very logical but you could never work out the rules, even if you spent all your time thinking about them. (19.7)
Well, Christopher might think that prime numbers are like life, but <em>we</em> think they're like Christopher: unique, indivisible, a little unpredictable, and very mysterious.