The Art of Racing in the Rain Chapters 6-10 Quotes
How we cite the quotes:
(Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote 1
"[Zoë] came early. You can't know what's going to happen before it happens."
"Yes I can," Denny said, "If I am any good, I can." (6.34-5)
If you think this is a little Yoda-trippy, that's because it is. Denny is trying to apply the rules by which he lives his racing career to his life, which is all very well and good when it makes him a prepared, focused person, but not good when he beats himself up for missing his daughter's birth or feels responsible for his wife's death. There are some things we can't control, Denny. Like whether they'll ever make a live-action reboot of The Lion King.
Quote 2
From the moment they arrived, the Twins had been admonishing Eve for having her baby at home. They told her she was endangering her baby's welfare and that in these modern times, it was irresponsible to have a baby anywhere but in the most prestigious of all hospitals with the most expensive of all doctors. (6.26)
Here Eve's parents, in a dynamic feat of time travelling, try to control a situation that has already transpired. They fail because they can't time travel, but they certainly want Eve to know how they would have done things differently and how her decision, which ended up working out in the end, anyway, was completely wrong.
Quote 3
"Will you promise to always protect her?" [Eve] asked. She wasn't asking me. She was asking Denny, and I was merely Denny's surrogate. Still, I felt the obligation. I understood that, as a dog, I could never be as interactive with humanity as I truly desired. Yet, I realized at that moment, I could be something else. I could comfort Eve when Denny was away. I could protect Eve's baby. (6.20-1)
This moment between Eve and Enzo is about two things. First, Eve might be suggesting that she won't always be around to protect her daughter, so she's asking Enzo, and by proxy, Denny, to do it for her. Second, Enzo steps up to the plate here, realizing that while he can't take control of being human, he can take control of his own life, in whatever small way he can, and do what Eve asks of him.
Quote 4
When it was just Denny and me, he used to make up to ten thousand dollars a month just by calling people on the telephone, like the commercial said. But after Eve became pregnant, he took his job behind the counter of the auto shop that serviced only expensive German cars. (7.1)
It sounds like Denny's old job was clearly raking in the big bucks. Coupled with his personality and his cute dog, it's no wonder Eve thought he was a keeper.
Quote 5
When Denny was away and Eve fed me and she leaned down to give me my bowl of food and my nose was near her head, I had detected a bad odor, like rotting wood, mushrooms, decay. Wet, soggy, decay. It came from her ears and her sinuses. There was something inside Eve's head that didn't belong. (7.24)
This is some clear-cut foreshadowing, right? Usually, "decay" isn't a word that comes up naturally when describing someone's odor. Unless this smell is just a new perfume Eve bought that Enzo really hates? Yeah, probably not.
Quote 6
And she roused Zoë and stuffed her little kid feet into her little-kid sneakers and—bang—the door slammed shut and—snick snick—the deadbolt was thrown and they were gone. And I wasn't gone. I was there. I was still there. (9.20)
This is the sense of loss that you feel when you leave a loved one behind. Enough said.
Quote 7
"I love you," she said. "I love all of you, even your racing. And I know on some level that you are completely right about all of this. I just don't think I could ever do it myself." (8.38)
This is why Eve and Denny's relationship works. They love and understand each other without trying to change each other. And sometimes, when they don't understand each other, they accept that without trying to force an explanation from the other. #relationshipgoals
Quote 8
I had always wanted to love Eve as Denny loved her, but I never had because was afraid. (8.49)
Enzo's desire to protect Denny and keep him for himself made him both envious and afraid of Eve, but all it took was Enzo to show Eve a bit of love for her to love him back.
Quote 9
Soon after [Eve] moved into our apartment, they were married in a small wedding ceremony, which I attended along with a group of their closest friends and Eve's immediate family. (6.3)
Denny's idea of family is something small and close-knit. There are some complicated reasons for Denny's thinking—his idea of family is certainly different from Eve's—but is there one right definition of family?
Quote 10
And while I greatly resented the attention Eve lavished on her unborn baby, I realized I had never given her a reason to lavish that same attention on me. Perhaps that is my regret: I loved how she was when she was pregnant, and yet I knew I could never be the source of her affection in that way because I could never be her child. (6.6)
Enzo desires to connect to Eve as she connects to her unborn baby. Well, okay, but unless he can figure out how to reverse-engineer the miracle of life, he's going to have to be content with being her pet.
Quote 11
The life that Eve had inside her was something she had made, She and Denny had made it together. I wished, at the time, that the baby would look like me. (6.9)
By saying that he wishes that the baby looked more like him, Enzo reveals his wish to integrate himself into the family better, to connect to the family that Denny and Eve are building together—and that Enzo might fear they are building without him.
Quote 12
It was loud and crazy and all the children let me play with them and wrestle on the rug, and I let them dress me up with a hat and a sweat jacket and Zoë called me her big brother. (7.19)
The turning point here is that Zoë, the cause of Enzo's initial worry that he might never be loved as much as the unborn child, already loves Enzo so much that it's clear he never even needed to worry about anything in the first place. Enzo probably makes a fantastic big brother.