How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #1
Anger flashed through me, hot and wild. [...] In eight full lives, I'd never had an emotion touch me with such force. (2.76)
There's a fine line between love and anger. Melanie is fiercely protecting her love, Jared, from Wanderer's probing thoughts. As Wanderer explorers further, she encounters the flip side of love: anger, which is hot and wild—just like love.
Quote #2
[Jared] kisses me again, and this time I feel it. (4.110)
Love isn't just in the mind and heart, there's a physiological aspect to it as well. Melanie's body responds so strongly to Jared's affection that it's impossible to tell where Wanda's feelings end and Melanie's physical reactions begin.
Quote #3
"How much is physical, how much in the mind? How much accident and how much fate? [...] Love simply is where it is." (5.41)
The Comforter asks some big questions. How do these questions apply to the Host? Both accident and fate play a big role in both Melanie/Jared and Wanda/Ian's love lives. And the issue of a physical body is beyond complicated in both situations.
Quote #4
"Perhaps you should open your eyes and look around for [love] specifically. It might do you a lot of good." (6.27)
This statement contrasts with the Comforter's earlier "love happens" idea. Is it possible to go looking for love and find it? Or do you have to wait until it finds you?
Quote #5
It's just like pain, this pleasure. (8.60)
If we were making a soundtrack to the book, this scene would have to be set to "Hurts So Good." And then we might take Wanda in for some counseling.
Quote #6
My heart faltered and then beat unevenly, and I wanted to laugh at myself. Did it matter that [Jared] was beautiful, that I loved him, when he was going to kill me? (14.15)
Melanie's emotions make Wanda think irrational thoughts. Jared hates Wanda and wants to kill her, yet she can't help but swoon over him. Get it together, girl, and stay away from him!
Quote #7
Perhaps without the lows, the highs could not be reached. Were the souls the exception to that rule? Could they have the light without the darkness of the world? (15.43)
This is only the end of a beautiful, thought-provoking passage about the nature of love. Love is the ultimate force in The Host, and the main reason that Wanda decides to stay human. From her lives inside of other species, she's learned that such powerful feelings of love come along with other passionate emotions on the other end of the spectrum—dare we say, like a parasite?
Quote #8
I knew the human exaggeration for sorrow—a broken heart. [...] I'd always thought of it as a hyperbole. [...] I wasn't expecting the pain in my chest. (19.129)
This scene calls to mind the raw, gaping hole in Bella's chest in New Moon. Stephenie Meyer's heroines are nothing if not acutely in tune with their emotions and the extreme pain they cause.
Quote #9
"Even if you're not there, [Mel], if you can't hear me. I love you." (30.7)
Jared's love for Melanie is complicated by the fact that her body still exists, but she's not in control of it. It's like a less-gross version of a zombie movie. How do you deal with your feelings when the person you love isn't herself any longer? Things are further complicated by the fact that Melanie exists in there somewhere. Wanda can act as an interpreter for Jared's feelings, like Whoopi Goldberg in Ghost, but Jared has to trust that Wanda's telling the truth.