How we cite our quotes: (Daysbefore.Paragraph) and (daysafter.Paragraph)
Quote #1
The final exam: What is the most important question human beings must answer? Choose your question wisely, and then examine how Islam, Buddhism, and Christianity attempt to answer it.
"I hope that poor bastard lives the rest of the school year," the Colonel said as we jogged home through the rain, "because I'm sure starting to enjoy that class. What's your most important question?"
After thirty seconds of running, I was already winded. "What happens... to us... when we die?" (76before.11-13)
Miles is obsessed with last words of famous people, and he also is kind of obsessed with what happens after death. He answers the question by saying that people believe in an afterlife because they can't not believe in one. This gives us a hint about how Miles will cope with the responsibility of Alaska's death and the fact that she is dead.
Quote #2
"The day after my mom took me to the zoo where she liked the monkeys and I liked the bears, it was a Friday. I came home from school. She gave me a hug and told me to go do my homework in my room so I could watch TV later. I went into my room, and she sat down at the kitchen table, I guess, and then she screamed, and I ran out, and she had fallen over. She was lying on the floor, holding her head and jerking. And I freaked out. I should have called 911, but I just started screaming and crying until finally she stopped jerking, and I thought she had fallen asleep and that whatever had hurt didn't hurt anymore. So I just sat there on the floor with her until my dad got home an hour later." (2before.67)
Sleep and death are often symbolically related in literature, and this novel is no exception. Alaska's first experience with death occurred when she was only eight years old, and she's been feeling the weight of guilt and her own mortality ever since. Heavy stuff, both emotionally and psychologically.
Quote #3
I found myself thinking about President William McKinley, the third American president to be assassinated. He lived for several days after he was shot, and toward the end, his wife started crying and screaming, "I want to go, too! I want to go, too!" And with his last measure of strength, McKinley turned to her and spoke his last words: "We are all going." (2before.76)
Once Miles learns of the death of Alaska's mom, he ponders the inevitability of death, but he forgets that mortality comes to us all when Alaska dies. So we have a split here—Miles knows that we all die, but he has no idea what death brings in its wake to the living. Poor guy ends up finding out, though.