How we cite our quotes: The main text of the story is cited (Chapter.Paragraph). The date headers are not counted as paragraphs. The verses in the chapters with a single passage from the narrator's religious texts are cited (Chapter.Verse.Line#). In chapters with multiple passages, the verses are cited (Chapter.Verse#.Line#). The four section pages with the years and passages are cited (Year.Verse).
Quote #1
Prodigy is, at its essence, adaptability and persistent, positive obsession. Without persistence, what remains is an enthusiasm of the moment. Without adaptability, what remains may be channeled into destructive fanaticism. Without positive obsession, there is nothing at all. (2024.Verse)
This verse passage is the very first thing we read in Parable of the Sower, so that means it's pretty important. It's all about Lauren: she's clearly a prodigy, and this quote is saying (that a prodigy needs to be persistent in order to succeed. Lauren stays really focused on her goals throughout the novel. She remains steadfast despite all the troubles thrown her way. Maybe that's why so many people admire her as a character.
Quote #2
Maybe I'll be more like Alicia Leal, the astronaut. Like her, I believe in something that I think my dying, denying, backward-looking people need. I don't have all of it yet. I don't even know how to pass on what I do have. I've got to learn to do that. It scares me how many things I've got to learn. How will I learn them? (3.46)
Lauren isn't a complete perfect robot who never feels fear or needs others' help. Here she plainly admits that the work she has set out for herself is scary, and it's clear she draws inspiration from Alicia Leal's life. Perseverance is all about feeling the fear and doing what you're supposed to do, anyway, rather than being some sort of impossible person who never gets afraid or worried.
Quote #3
But this thing (This idea? Philosophy? New religion?) won't let me alone, won't let me forget it, won't let me go. Maybe...Maybe it's like my sharing: One more weirdness; one more crazy, deep-rooted delusion that I'm stuck with. I am stuck with it. And in time, I'll have to do something about it. In spite of what my father will say or do to me, in spite of the poisonous rottenness outside the wall where I might be exiled, I'll have to do something about it. (3.51)
From the outside, people look at Lauren or other prodigies and admire them. They wonder how it is that these individuals can summon the ability to work so very hard and persevere for long periods of time. But from the inside, Lauren sees it differently: Earthseed is something she's stuck with and has to deal with. It's an obsession that won't let her alone. So how much is her perseverance a virtuous matter of choice, and how much of it is just her nature?
Quote #4
"We can get ready. That's what we've got to do now. Get ready for what's going to happen, get ready to survive it, get ready to make a life afterward. Get focused on arranging to survive so that we can do more than just get batted around by crazy people, desperate people, thugs, and leaders who don't know what they're doing!" (5.72)
Lauren is ready to work hard to improve the world herself, and she wants her friend Joanne to join in. Of course, Joanne thinks Lauren's ideas are pretty crazy. Nevertheless, Lauren perseveres and ends up starting Acorn, the new Earthseed community. TAKE THAT, JOANNE.
Quote #5
"Read this." I handed her one of the plant books. This one was about California Indians, the plants they used, and how they used them—an interesting, entertaining little book. She would be surprised. There was nothing in it to scare her or threaten her or push her. I thought I had already done enough of that.
"Take notes," I told her. "You'll remember better if you do." (5.130-131)
This passage is also from Lauren's conversation with Joanne. Lauren perseveres even in this single conversation by trying to get her friend to see the importance of studying survival techniques. Joanne doesn't get it, but that doesn't stop Lauren: she's able to keep her focus despite other people thinking she's nuts. Go Lauren.
Quote #6
All I do is observe and take notes, trying to put things down in ways that are as powerful, as simple, and as direct as I feel them. I can never do that. I keep trying, but I can't. I'm not good enough as a writer or poet or whatever it is I need to be. I don't know what to do about that. It drives me frantic sometimes. I'm getting better, but so slowly. (7.6)
Again, the view from the outside and the view from the inside may differ. From the outside, people are likely to look upon Lauren and say, well, she works hard, she's very smart, etc. Bankole says some of that to her, for example. But from Lauren's own internal point of view, she sees her failures: how she's not good enough yet or is improving only slowly. Whose scale is the better one, Lauren's or those from people who observe her from outside? Is she her own worst enemy, or does she know something that non-prodigies don't?
Quote #7
I'm going to go through my old journals and gather the verses I've written into one volume. I'll put them into one of the exercise notebooks that Cory hands out to the older kids now that there are so few computers in the neighborhood. I've written plenty of useless stuff in these books, getting my high school work out of the way. Now I'll put one to better use. Then, someday when people are able to pay more attention to what I say than to how old I am, I'll use these verses to pry them loose from the rotting past, and maybe push them into saving themselves and building a future that makes sense. (7.11)
Here's an example of the prodigious Lauren at work. She's organizing her Earthseed writings, and that turns out to be super helpful when her Robledo community gets destroyed and she has to tear out of there with few belongings. Notice how even though she's just a teenager, Lauren has a long-term plan—to use her Earthseed verses to help people—and she's working hard to put it into action. That's what you'd call perseverance, right?
Quote #8
I thanked them all for the ongoing—emphasize ongoing—efforts to find my father. Then...well, then I talked about perseverance. I preached a sermon about perseverance if an unordained kid can be said to preach a sermon. No one was going to stop me.
[...]
So I preached from Luke, chapter eighteen, verses one through eight: the parable of the importunate widow. It's one I've always liked. A widow is so persistent in her demands for justice that she overcomes the resistance of a judge who fears neither God nor man. She wears him down.
Moral: The weak can overcome the strong if the weak persist. Persisting isn't always safe, but it's often necessary. (12.74-76)
Lauren's totally giving a sermon here—and on perseverance no less. She tells her Robledo community that they must stand firm, despite the disappearance of their leader, her father. Of course, the Robledo community is destroyed not long after this, so the sermon ultimately doesn't help all that much. But what about Zahra, with whom Lauren later teams up? Zahra is persistent, too, in her own way: she survives Richard Moss. Notice how Zahra is absent from this scene. Lauren and Zahra were unable to join up prior to the destruction of Robledo—which goes to show that maybe persistent people are closer to us than we might think.
Quote #9
"We have God and we have each other. We have our island community, fragile, and yet a fortress. Sometimes it seems to small and too weak to survive. And like the widow in Christ's parable, its enemies fear neither God nor man. But also like the widow, it persists. We persist. This is our place, no matter what." (12.79)
Folks, this is pretty ironic. This is our place, no matter what? Hasn't Lauren already decided in the previous chapter to head north once she turns eighteen (11.47-48)? So in many ways, by staying in Robledo, she's clinging to a past world, one that's no longer effective, and in doing so, she's not recognizing that God is change. She's gonna learn pretty quickly.
Quote #10
Travis listened. He didn't point out that a person walking north from L.A. to who-knows-where with all her possessions on her back was hardly in a position to point the way to Alpha Centauri. He listened. He laughed a little—as though he were afraid to get caught being too serious about my ideas. But he didn't back away from me. He leaned forward. He argued. He shouted. He asked more questions. Natividad told him to stop bothering me, but he kept it up. I didn't mind. I understand persistence. I admire it. (18.82)
Lauren's an unusual leader in that she welcomes dissent and disagreement. She recognizes in Travis that rare quality within herself: persistence, perseverance. It takes a steadfast person to make big changes in the world, so when our narrator sees that quality in Travis, she doesn't turn away from him. Instead, she continues working with him.