How we cite our quotes: [Part.Paragraph]
Quote #1
Then the wonderfulest thing, Mouse puts his mouth out, it's pointy. I nearly jump in the air but I don't, I stay extra still. (1.356)
Mouse is the first living thing from Outside Room that Jack has ever seen, and he regards it like he regards everything: with wide-eyed child-like reverence.
Quote #2
I get the plastic right off and I suck [the lollipop] and suck it, it's the sweetest thing I ever had. I wonder if this is what Outside tastes like. (2.394)
This is the first lollipop Jack has had, which came from Outside. It's also the first time he seems genuinely curious about leaving Room and exploring what Outside has to offer. He'll learn that he can never explore everything. Like trying to figure out how many licks it takes to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop: the world may never know… and Jack may never know the world, at least completely.
Quote #3
"[The air]'s fresher. In the summer, it smells of cut grass, because we're in his backyard. Sometimes I get a glimpse of shrubs and hedges." (2.668)
Ma is starting to describe the Outside that lies directly on the other side of Door. These are a lot of details for Jack to absorb at once, though. He likes the smell, but trying to visualize it all is too much. It's going to take him a while to work up the ability to explore it all.
Quote #4
"You don't even know what it's doing to you." [Ma's] voice is shaky. "You need to see things, touch things—" (3.251)
Ma longs for Jack to explore Outside more than Jack does. Jack is content staying inside Room, his home, but Ma knows how many wonderful things are Outside for him to experience.
Quote #5
"Will we go explore?" "Where?" "Outside." "We're in Outside already." "Yeah, but let's go out in the fresh air and look for the cat," says Ma. (4.247-4.251)
Jack doesn't yet understand that there are different versions of Outside. For him, being cooped up in a hospital is a world of difference from being cooped up inside Room. But for Ma, being cooped up anywhere is still being cooped up… she wants to be in the outdoors, and she wants to convince Jack to come with her.
Quote #6
There's anyones too near eating strange squares with little squares all over and curly bacons. (4.310)
Everything is so new to Jack, it's sometimes difficult to realize at first what he's describing. Here, he's in the cafeteria breakfast room, and everyone is eating waffles. Jack really does have to learn everything out in the world (but don't we all?). Good thing no one tells him to leggo my Eggo, or his head might explode.
Quote #7
My favorite bit of Outside is the window. It's different every time. A bird goes right by zoom, I don't know what it was. The shadows are all long again now, mine waves right across our room on the green wall. (4.512)
Looking out the window is the only way Jack is comfortable exploring his surroundings at first. As a kid who enjoys TV so much, this isn't unusual. It's a way for Jack to explore Outside without actually having to interact with it.
Quote #8
I find a triangularish thing the big of my nose that Noreen says is a rock. "It's millions of years old," says Ma. How does she know? I look at the under, there's no label. (4.874-4.876)
Jack explores the world the only way he knows how, through the lens of Room, where he has grown up. Everything in Room was bought for him, so it would have a label or some sort of identifier. He doesn't yet understand that there are things in nature that have been around a lot longer than labels have.
Quote #9
Pictures in the window are like in TV but blurrier, I see cars that are parked, a cement mixer, a motorbike and a car trailer with one two three four five cars on it, that's my best number. In a front yard a kid pushing a wheelbarrow with a little kid in it, that's funny. There's a dog crossing a road with a human on a rope, I think it's actually tied, not like the daycare that were just holding on. Traffic lights changing to green and a woman with crutches hopping and a huge bird on a trash, Deana says that's just a gull, they eat anything and everything. (4.1402)
Whew, that's one paragraph. One long, exhausting paragraph. Of course, it's not exhausting to Jack. While he's listing a whole bunch of mundane objects, they're all new and fascinating for him to see. Each of these things flying by as the car zooms down the room provides Jack with an opportunity for exploration.
Quote #10
At Grandma's house, she shows me France on the globe that's like a statue of the world and always spinning. This whole entire city we're in is just a dot and the Clinic's in the dot too. (5.151)
Grandma is really broadening Jack's horizons now by showing him the globe. It seems that Jack's world grows bigger and bigger every day. This is the first time he has realized (even though he doesn't quite get it yet) that where he is right now barely registers on the globe.