An American Dream Mortality Quotes

How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)

Quote #1

I looked down the abyss on the first night I killed: four men, four very separate Germans, dead under a full moon. (1.3)

If Rojack were a superhero, this would be his origin story. This experience shapes the man he becomes and the crimes he will eventually commit. Keep an eye on the moon, by the way: It figures into Rojack's relationship with death quite a bit. We have more to say about it over in the "Symbolism" section and on Rojack's page in the "Characters" section.

Quote #2

It was all in his eyes, he had eyes I was to see once later on an autopsy table […] so perfectly blue and made they go all the way […] to God. (1.7)

Although Rojack isn't very religious, he has a powerful spiritual experience as he watches a man die. Later, he has similar feelings when he imagines Deborah's green eyes haunting him from beyond the grave. Rojack has gotten a glimpse of whatever it is that lies beyond life—and what he sees haunts him.

Quote #3

Where many another young athlete or hero might have had a vast and continuing recreation with sex, I was lost in a private kaleidoscope of death. (1.10)

In Rojack's eyes, his peers are ignorant of their own mortality. This guy sounds like a real buzz-kill, huh? Throughout the novel, we're shown the contradictions—and the similarities—between sex and death. At this early stage, however, Rojack is too shaken by thoughts of death to even think about creating life.