How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #1
My mother looked at the thumb and said, in a very slow and controlled voice, as if she were issuing instructions for bomb-defusing, "Your dad was here. He said he doesn't love me anymore. He hasn't loved me for ten years. He's going to live in Phoenix now." (6.21)
When Pearl's dad leaves, everyone is surprised—including Pearl's mom. It's our first glimpse into the love theme in the novel as Pearl realizes that love doesn't last forever. It might seem like chocolates and roses most of the time, but that can turn into emptiness pretty quickly when it disappears.
Quote #2
If you ask a computer to tell you the French translation for "making love," you get "fabrication de l'amour," which is what Robby and I had called sex ever since: fabricating. (13.56)
We can't think of a better way to explain love in the book than to use the word "fabrication," meaning something that is fake. It seems like everyone is good at faking love. That's why it's so tricky to figure out whether people are genuine and trustworthy in love or not.
Quote #3
Looking back, I see that I was beginning my practice with lies, preparing unconsciously for the day four months in the future when the fire would jump from tree to tree and roof to roof and I would head straight to the woods, to Amiel, to a house no fireman would think to defend but where all that I had come to love was in danger of burning alive. (18.23)
Cue the dramatic music. When Pearl tells us that everything she loves is in danger of being burned, we hope she's talking metaphorically. As it turns out, though, she's not. The fire claims her uncle's life, and comes close to Pearl and Amiel, too.
Quote #4
"It is not you, but the culture," she said with what I think was fondness, though it might have been amusement. "The culture says you cannot have, so you want. You think my maman was wanting American rancher for me?" (23.11)
Agnès sees the world differently than Pearl—to her, Pearl is only really interested in Amiel because she can't have him. You know that feeling you get when someone tells you something is forbidden? It makes you want it even more. Agnès claims that's the only reason Pearl likes Amiel at all. Do you think she's right?
Quote #5
"But I will tell you a saying my father told to me. Amour fait beaucoup, mais argent fait tout." I waited because the only word I understood was "love." "Which means?" I asked. "Love does much," she said, "but money does all." (23.21)
Leave it to Agnès to bust out French at a random moment when talking about love. Even though Pearl rolls her eyes at Agnès's pretentiousness, we can't help but notice that her statement stops Pearl in her tracks. According to Agnès, love doesn't conquer all, because only money can do that.
Quote #6
"So how're you lovebirds?" I asked with false cheer. Since only old people use the word lovebirds, I immediately went quiet. Hickey and Greenie re-entwined themselves on the wooden swing, and I perched on the edge of a ratty lounge chair. (25.11)
Greenie and Hickey are your typical teenage lovebirds. They spend all of their time together, can't get enough of each other, and immediately ditch their friends when the other is near. They give us another portrait of love in the novel, but this time from a more conventional route. In fact, they make us notice how unconventional Amiel and Pearl really are.
Quote #7
Inside the house, near the hearth, Amiel had built a sort of fire pit with rocks. It was a safer place to cook than most campsites, really, because there was concrete all around, and I longed to be there when he had a fire going, when we could be cowgirl and cowboy and pretend we weren't a few miles from two million people. We stood in the sunlit, roofless house and looked down at the charred rocks. (33.41)
When Pearl tells Amiel that she loves it in his home, we think she means that she loves spending time with Amiel no matter where it is. People might try to tell Pearl that she and Amiel are from different worlds, but she just wants to be with him anywhere in any world.
Quote #8
The fire engine passed. Then another. And another. I didn't raise my hand or step out of the trees. I did what I thought was to love him, and I followed Amiel back down the bank toward the sheltering reeds. (47.7)
Pearl decides that she wants to be with Amiel instead of anyone else during the fire. She's in love, after all. But notice that she says she stuck with him because she "thought" that was love, which makes it sound like it really wasn't. There's definitely a part of us that questions whether putting yourself in danger is really love.
Quote #9
I thought that Agnès was lucky in one thing: Hoyt hadn't left her for his lover as my father had left us. That was better, wasn't it? I knew what he'd done, and Robby knew, but Agnès didn't, and I added this to all the other qualities that made my uncle a good man. (56.14)
At Hoyt's funeral, Pearl finds herself thinking about the nature of love. She decides Agnès and Robby are better off than her mom and she in this department since her uncle wasn't having an affair with Mary Beth after all. It makes Pearl realize he really was a good guy.
Quote #10
I've pinned lines from the Victor Hugo poem above my desk and that they have helped me plan the future: The breeze that takes you lifts me up alive, And I'll follow those I loved, I the exile. (58.33)
These lines of Hugo's poem are read at Hoyt's funeral, and Pearl writes them down for herself later on. It's fitting that the poem talks about following people you love because that's exactly what Pearl did with Amiel during the fire, and what she plans to do at the end of the book as well. That's her idea of love.