Find quotes from this novel, with commentary from Shmoop. Pick a theme below to begin.
Greed Quotes
The very words "California Bound" are dusted in gold & beckon all men thitherwards like moths to a lantern. (1.8.2)
Slavery Quotes
The earliest [Moriori] transgressors were executed in gruesome ways [by the Maori] & the survivors lived in that state of lethargy engendered by relentless subjugation. (1.10.21)
Prejudice Quotes
Everywhere [Autua] observed that casual brutality lighter races show the darker. (1.1.19)
Power Quotes
Peace [...] is a cardinal virtue only if your neighbors share your conscience. (1.5.19)
Fate and Free Will Quotes
I fumbled for my lighter. The flame conjured a Rastafarian in Holbein embers, just a few inches away, a cigar held in his thick lips. (4.1.193)
Man and the Natural World Quotes
"The only answer can be 'There is no "Why."' This is our nature. 'Who' and 'What' run deeper than 'Why.'" (3.29.2)
Truth Quotes
"A film that shows the world is a Bates Motel, well, that's... the stuff of Buchenwald, dystopia, depression." (3.5.1)
Religion Quotes
No organist played a Magnificat but the wind in the flue chimney, no choir sang a Nunc Dimittis but the withering gulls, yet I fancy the Creator was not displeazed. (1.4.7)
Memory and the Past Quotes
"I dreamt of a... nightmarish cafe, brilliantly lit, but underground, with no way out. I'd been dead a long, long time. The waitresses all had the same face. The food was soap, the only drink was c...
Old Age Quotes
In the girls' eyes I was... old, merely old. Not behaving the way an old man should—invisible, silent, and scared—was, itself, sufficient provocation. (4.1.214)