How we cite our quotes: (Part.Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #1
"Round the world, eh?" said Radclif, impressed. "Musta been a mighty rich man."
"Well, that was a long time ago." (1.1.18-19)
For Joel, as for many of the characters in the novel, the past is better than the present. Joel's grandfather had traveled all the way around the world, and all Joel has to show for it is the suitcase. He himself travels through the South, and isn't exactly visiting any exotic locales.
Quote #2
He hadn't had a proper hour's rest since leaving New Orleans, for when he closed his eyes, as now, certain sickening memories slid through his mind. (1.1.34)
Joel is haunted by the past; the memories of his mother's recent death chase him and don't leave him alone. It's as though the past were a ghost that follows him around, waiting for him to fall asleep and then waking him up in a sort of evil torture.
Quote #3
"I've always considered it the finest room in the house. Cousin Randolph was born here: in that very bed. And Angela Lee… Randolph's mother: a beautiful woman, originally from Memphis… died here, oh, not many years ago. We've never used it since." (1.2.31)
The spaces of Skully's Landing are usually infused with memory, as though time and space were collapsing into one thing. Joel's new bedroom had been shut up for years, like it could hold the memories of the Skully family in if they didn't change anything or air it out.
Quote #4
"The pillars… Randolph adores them, too; they were once part of that old side porch," she told him in a reminiscing voice. (1.2.35)
The "reminiscing voice" that Miss Amy uses to talk about her family's glory days is a positive one. For her, the past is good and the future is…well, don't even think about it. We're not even sure if the memories she's sharing are hers or just passed down through the generations.
Quote #5
Joel gazed down on the jumbled green, trying to picture the music room and the dancers ("Angela Lee played the harp," Miss Amy was saying, "and Mr. Casey the piano, and Jesus Fever, though he'd never studied, the violin, and Randolph the Elder sang; had the finest male voice in the state, everyone said so"), but the willows were willows and the goldenrod goldenrod and the dancers dead and lost. (1.2.40)
Miss Amy is able to conjure up the past with her words and memories, bringing up old parties and guests so that she doesn't feel so lonely. Somehow Joel is disconnected from that past though; he sees things as they are, which might be why he seems to be the only one who's sane in the whole house.
Quote #6
Somewhere in a school textbook of Joel's was a statement contending that the earth at one time was probably a white hot sphere, like the sun; now, standing in the scorched garden, he remembered it. (1.2.123)
Joel relates the garden at Skully's Landing to one of his memories, which is of the earth's deepest past. It's as though he the earth was born at Skully's Landing, with its heat and ancient stories. The memories that pervade the place also help to create a sense of the past.
Quote #7
"This is the first year a cricket hasn't visited," she said. "Every summer one has always hidden in the fireplace, and sang till autumn: remember, Randolph, how Angela Lee would never let us kill it?" (1.4.65)
Miss Amy feels tied to her home because of the memories she has in it. For her, they are always present. What's strange is that this year something is different—there had always been a cricket except for now, which happens to be when Joel comes. Maybe his presence jerks the family out of the past.
Quote #8
"Have you never heard what the wise men say: all of the future exists in the past." (1.4.84)
Randolph is always talking in mysteries. Here he seems to be giving Joel a warning, and the readers some foreshadowing. If all of the future exists in the past, then it isn't important to look forward. One can just stay underneath the memories of a lifetime, which is what Randolph is doing.
Quote #9
But Little Sunshine stayed on: it was his rightful home, he said, for if he went away, as he had once upon a time, other voices, other rooms, voices lost and clouded, strummed his dreams. (1.5.27)
Again, space and time are tied together. Every character in the novel has deep roots in a certain spot, which has to do with where their own past and their family memories are located. When Little Sunshine leaves the hotel, he looses his connection with his past and, therefore, himself.
Quote #10
They passed a little human grave: on its splintered head-cross was printed a legend: Toby, Killed by the Cat. Sunken, a stretch of sycamore root growing from its depth, it was, you could tell, an old grave. "What's that mean," said Joel, "killed by the cat?"
"It happened before I was born," said Idabel, as if this explained everything. (2.7.10-11)
Idabel and Joel are young, and for them (like for many of us) the entire world began when they were born. For Idabel, the explanation of "it happened before I was born" is enough to keep her from needing to know or say anything else. The past is the ultimate authority in this novel.