How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #1
She wakes up in the morning and sees with perfect clarity a string of small, well-lit scenes. In each one something specific is being done: food things, work things, customers and acquaintances and encountered, places entered. But she does not see herself doing these things. She sees them being done. (1.52)
Uh-oh… Violet's losing it a wee bit. In what would clinically be called disassociation, Violet is imagining her life as existing independent of herself. Stuff is so routine, and she feels so divorced from her reality, that she imagines that her life would go on just the same without her in it.
Quote #2
Sometimes when Violet isn't paying attention she stumbled onto these cracks, like the time when, instead of putting her left heel forward, she stepped back and folded her legs in order to sit in the street. (1.52)
Man, sometimes you just sit in the street, right? No? Oh, well that's what Violet does, because she feels that doing one (normal) thing, like walking forward across the street, is basically just as easy as doing another (abnormal) thing, like sitting down in the road. And she has a point: We do what we do because it's societally acceptable, not because we have to. So really, old Violet is living life to the fullest and looking into each possibility. Hmm… Maybe we'll have a sandwich for dinner, or maybe we'll just eat a huge bowl of pudding.
Quote #3
Long before Joe stood in the drugstore watching a girl buy candy, Violet had stumbled into a crack or two. Words connected only to themselves pieced an otherwise normal comment. (1.53)
Okay, so on the surface, Violet is acting nuttier than trail mix, but under the surface of this comment? Uh, she's acting kind of like jazz music. She's riffing, she's improvising—you never know what she's going to say. That's a little crazy and disorienting, but you know what? Jazz is also kind of crazy and disorienting. It's a new way of storytelling, a new way of expressing truth.