How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #1
Sailmaker! This was my great chance. If I could become junior sailmaker, then maybe one day I could become head sailmaker, then rudder man, watch officer—and one day, just maybe, captain of a ship like the Aurora. (2.30)
This is Matt's ultimate ambition: to be captain of a great airship. Granted, it's a little out of his league, but there's nothing you can't achieve without hard work and some elbow grease, right?
Quote #2
I thought of the gold-stamped steering wheel the sailmakers wore on their collars; I had coveted that insignia for so long now. (3.18)
Matt could be dreaming about being rich, or famous, or discovering Velcro, but all he wants is to gradually work his way through the ranks to someday earn the title of Captain of an airship. If life were fair, this would be a very attainable goal.
Quote #3
"I've done nothing you don't deserve," he said impatiently. "It's all changed since I started out. Forty years ago, if you didn't have money—and my family had none—you began as a cabin boy. I did it, just like you. But then you could rise by dint of hard work and honesty and skill. Now there is the Air Ship Academy—and getting in takes not just skill but money or connections, or both. And they think they can train people in musty classrooms. To be sure, they can teach them certain things. But not character. Not hard work, and not the mettle it takes to sail a ship aloft across continents and oceans. Lunardi and the other owners like Academy training. It comes with letterhead, with fancy seals and certificates, and that makes them feel they're getting their money's worth! Makes them feel they can sleep easy!" (3.19)
The captain is definitely a fan of what a little hard work and perseverance can get you. He (rightly so) believes that positions should be granted based on merit, not who you know or how much money your dad has. It's reassuring that he's frustrated about thwarting Matt's dreams—even if it won't help Matt.
Quote #4
There was no shame in the position; I wasn't so proud as to think it beneath me. But it was not what I wanted. What I wanted, with the intensity of all my dreams, was to one day fly the Aurora. To make her part the winds over the Mongolian steppes, soar over Antarctica, and weather the storms of Terra Nova. What I wanted was to take her airborne and keep her there forever. (3.30)
Ambitious little kid, eh? But who can blame him—waiting hand and foot on rich people is no picnic. And even though Matt is a dreamer by nature, he's also a pretty realistic dude. He knows that the only way he'll ever achieve his dreams is through hard work and not letting these kinds of bumps in the road deter him from his goals.
Quote #5
"If I can collect a set of bones from this creature, imagine that!" she said. "Pictures, photographs would be excellent too, of course. But the Zoological Society might poo-poo them. Fakes, like the faeries, they'd say, like the Schlock Ness monster. Imagine the furor when I show them real bones. 'How do you explain that?' I'll say to them." She already saw it playing out in her mind like a cinema reel. (9.66)
Remember the Mirror of Erised from Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone? It's the mirror Harry finds in a forbidden wing where he sees himself with his family, because the magic of the mirror is that it reflects all of your dreams coming true. We have a feeling that Kate would see herself in the mirror giving a lecture to a room full of astounded Zoological Society stuffed shirts, proving to them once and for all that she's the best scientist ever.
Quote #6
"I hate it when things are unfair," she muttered. "You must go to this Air Academy too, when you're older."
"It's not quite as easy as that," I said.
"Why isn't it?"
"It costs money, and I haven't much of that. None, in fact."
"Surely there are scholarships for promising students."
I nodded, saying nothing.
"You must get a scholarship," said Kate, solving all my problems for me. "And after your training you can proceed to sailmaker, and then on to officer and then captain. It would be such a terrible shame if someone of your obvious ability didn't succeed."
I didn't feel like talking about it anymore. Even if I won a scholarship, the Academy training was at least two years—two years during which I would be making no money to send back to my mother and sisters. They relied on me. Even if the Academy offered me a place, I'd not be able to take it. But somehow I couldn't tell Kate this. I felt ashamed. Around her and all her wealth, the very idea of being poor seemed ridiculous. Impossible. She meant well, but I doubted she had any notion of what the world was like outside her moneyed bubble. (11.69-76)
Have you ever heard the phrase blind ambition? This is almost a perfect example of it. Ambition is the desire to achieve a particular end—blind ambition is when you don't let things like common sense or logic get in the way of achieving said goal. Kate just sees what Matt needs to accomplish and forges ahead, but Matt knows the reality is that there are obstacles in his life he just might not be able to surmount.
Quote #7
"This is going to prove him right," she said, nodding at the skeleton. "No one will think he was crazy after this, not even my mother." (11.135)
Kate hopes to prove to everyone, especially her parents, that her grandfather wasn't a raving lunatic. He was her role model as well as one of the major motivating factors behind her drive to prove the existence of the cloud cats.
Quote #8
Here's one of the drawbacks to being an ambitious person: sometimes when you achieve one goal you realize it's not enough. This isn't always a problem, but in this situation Kate's ambition might just get them eaten by a wild animal.
Quote #9
She'd stood there before her Lumiére projector and showed her photos of the skeleton, explained them, and then described our encounters with the cloud cat in the middle of the Pacificus. When she answered questions from the audience, her voice never shook, and she rarely stumbled on her words or hesitated. Quite apart from that, she looked wonderful in a fitted striped suit with dark lapels, her hair chestnut and glowing. "Hello," I said. "You're famous now." (21.4)
Here's that scene from the Mirror of Erised. Kate has achieved one of her life's pursuits; of course her voice doesn't shake, she's right where she's always known she belongs.
Quote #10
"As you can see, I'm wildly popular with the scientific community," Kate whispered to me. "They don't know it yet, but I'm going to have their jobs and offices before long."
"I hope you do," I said. (21.25-26)
As we've said before, being an ambitious person means that you don't always stop once you've achieved what you set out to do. Kate's going somewhere in life, and its awesome.