How we cite our quotes: (Page) Vintage Books, 1989
Quote #1
But deer, like rabbits and bears and even men, can make, concerning my race, no delicate distinctions. That is their happiness: they see all life without observing it. They're buried like crabs in mud. Except men, of course. (8)
From the moment Grendel encounters mankind, he knows there is something special about them. They not only experience what's around them through their senses—they can interpret things, and think and plan. It makes them utterly terrifying to the young monster.
This also puts him between a rock and a hard place, so to speak. He may be furry, huge and beastlike, but Grendel has a greater affinity with human beings than he does with goats and deer. In short, he just doesn't fit in anywhere he goes. And that makes for one giant identity crisis.
Quote #2
I understood that the world was nothing; a mechanical chaos of casual, brute enmity on which we stupidly impose our hopes and fears. I understood that, finally and absolutely, I alone exist. All the rest, I saw, is merely what pushes me, or what I push against, blindly—as blindly as all that is not myself pushes back. I create the whole universe blink by blink... (22)
Baby Grendel is having a real philosophical epiphany here. Actually, he's having several. First, he gets the sense that existence and suffering are purposeless. Then—and totally appropriately for a young creature—he signs himself up as a solipsist. This philosophy says that physical objects don't exist outside of the mind that perceives them. Perhaps it's a defense mechanism for the trapped monster: it gives him a sense of control in the bad situation that is his life.
Quote #3
"The essence of life is to be found in the frustrations of established order. The universe refuses the deadening influence of complete conformity." (67)
The dragon blabbers on about a lot of stuff, but this is about the most coherent that he ever gets. It's clear that he believes in chaos—that the universe and all alive in it evolves through a series of accidents and mishaps. It's a way of life, the dragon insists. He warns Grendel to stop thinking of himself as particularly important or destined in some way. We're all just "pointless accident."