How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #7
The impulse had sent [the Poet] leaping from the embankment to tackle the cavalry officer in the saddle and stab the fellow three times with his own belt-knife before the two of them toppled to the ground. (23.4)
Didn't think the Poet had it in him, did you? And let's not forget that Zerchi will give Dr. Cors a wicked haymaker later. Seems no one in this novel can escape their primitive impulses.
Quote #8
"What's to be believed? Or does it matter at all? When mass murder's been answered with mass murder, rape with rape, hate with hate, there's no longer meaning in asking whose ax is the bloodier. Evil, on evil, piled on evil." (26.9)
Here, we return to the idea of violence leading to more violence. This time, it comes packaged with the notion of justice, but Father Zerchi questions the validity of responding to one primitive act with another. Do two wrongs ever make a right? (Probably not, unless you're in the business of making axes.)
Quote #9
When the world was in darkness and wretchedness, it could believe in perfection and yearn for it. But when the world became bright with reason and riches, it began to sense the narrowness of the needle's eye, and that rankled for a world no longer willing to believe or yearn. Well, they were going to destroy it again, were they— (26.59)
You'd think that as we improve our lives, our primitive natures would lessen. Maybe even disappear. But the book wonders if the opposite isn't true.