How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #1
"What do I expect?" said Wilhelm. He felt as though he were unable to recover something. Like a ball in the surf, washed beyond reach, his self-control was going out. "I expect help!" [. . .] "When I suffer—you aren't even sorry. That's because you have no affection for me, and you don't want any part of me." (3.97)
It's hard to say what makes Wilhelm most upset: the fact that his father won't share his money, or the fact that his father expects Wilhelm to deal with his problems alone. Wilhelm desperately wants his father's support, but Dr. Adler wants nothing to do with his son's troubles and failures. What would you do?
Quote #2
If you only knew one per cent of what goes on in the city of New York! You see, I understand what it is when the lonely person begins to feel like an animal. When the night comes and he feels like howling from his window like a wolf. (4.75)
It's insights like these that make Wilhelm trust Tamkin, despite some serious doubts about the dude. Like Wilhelm, Tamkin seems to understand what it feels like to be lonely for human comfort—to want to run with a pack, instead of going it alone. Did someone say wolfpack?
Quote #3
"In here, the human bosom—mine, yours, everybody's—there isn't just one soul. There's a lot of souls. But there are two main ones, the real soul and a pretender soul. Now! Every man realizes that he has to love something or somebody. He feels that he must go outward. 'If thou canst not love, what art thou?' Are you with me?" (4.90)
Wilhelm is drawn to Tamkin's notion of the two souls because he craves human sympathy and love. Um, desperate much?
Quote #4
Wilhelm said, "But this means that the world is full of murderers. So it's not the world. It's a kind of hell.
"Sure," the doctor said. "At least a kind of purgatory. You walk on the bodies. They are all around. I can hear them cry de profundis and wring their hands. I hear them, poor human beasts. I can't help hearing. And my eyes are open to it. I have to cry, too." (4.100)
Tamkin may be a crook and a liar, but Wilhelm is drawn to him because the doctor seems to understand what it means to feel miserable. Wilhelm feels like one of those "poor human beasts," crying and wringing their hands, and Tamkin may be just the comforting companion he's been craving for so long. We're not sure if this makes Tamkin a nice guy, or even more despicable than we thought.
Quote #5
So? I took a gamble. It'll have to be a miracle though, to save me. My money will be gone, then it won't be able to destruct me. He can't just take and lose it, though. He's in it too. I think he's in a bad way himself. He must be. I'm sure because, come to think of it, he sweated blood when he signed that check. But what have I let myself in for? The waters of the earth are going to roll over me. (4.129)
Like the men and beasts who didn't make it onto Noah's Ark, or like the army covered over by the waves as Moses lead his people out of Egypt, Wilhelm is drowning is a sea of cares. Although he needs to believe that he and Tamkin are in this together, deep down, he feels that his ruin will be his, and his alone.
Quote #6
And was everybody crazy here? What sort of people did you see? Every other man spoke a language entirely his own, which he had figured out by private thinking; he had his own ideas and peculiar ways. If you wanted to talk about a glass of water, you had to start back with God creating the heavens and the earth; the apple; Abraham, Moses and Jesus; Rome, the Middle Ages; gunpowder; the Revolution; back to Newton; up to Einstein; then war and Lenin and Hitler. (5.36)
Even in a city of millions where Wilhelm is surrounded by all kinds of people every single day, sympathetic communication seems impossible. People are so different from one another that it takes a huge amount of effort just to have a simple conversation. And this was before we had smartphones, mind you.
Quote #7
You had to translate and translate, explain and explain, back and forth, and it was the punishment of hell itself not to understand or be understood, not to know the crazy from the sane, the wise from the fools, the young from the old or the sick from the well. The fathers were no fathers and the sons no sons. You had to talk with yourself in the daytime and reason with yourself at night. Who else was there to talk to in a city like New York? (5.36)
The Tower of Babel is a recurring image throughout Seize the Day, and here the novel's narrator is gesturing to it again. Like the men who suffer God's punishment at Babel, Wilhelm is desperate to understand, and, most importantly, to be understood. Too bad God has other plans.
Quote #8
And in the dark tunnel, in the haste, heat, and darkness which disfigure and make freaks and fragments of nose and eyes and teeth, all of a sudden, unsought, a general love for all these imperfect and lurid-looking people burst out in Wilhelm's breast. He loved them. One and all, he passionately loved them. They were his brothers and sisters. (5.38)
A fleeting experience in an underground tunnel is a revelation to Wilhelm, as it makes him feel that there is "a larger body" of which he is but one small part (5.37). Although the moment passes quickly, Wilhelm struggles to remember it later in times when he feels anxious and alone.
Quote #9
And the great, great crowd, the inexhaustible current of millions of every race and kind pouring out, pressing round, of every age, of every genius, possessors of every human secret, antique and future, in every face the refinement of one particular motive or essence—I labor, I spend, I strive, I design, I love, I cling, I uphold, I give way, I envy, I long, I scorn, I die, I hide, I want. (7.89)
As Wilhelm faces his ruin, his vision of the "inexhaustible" crowd is almost like the one he has in the underground tunnel. But, whereas in the tunnel he felt sure that all the men and women were part of one "larger body" of humankind, here, he can only perceive the crowd as a never-ending current of individual "I"s, kind of like this.
Quote #10
The flowers and lights fused ecstatically in Wilhelm's blind, we eyes; the heavy sea-like music came up to his ears. It poured into him where he had hidden himself in the center of a crowd by the great and happy oblivion of tears. He heard it and sank deeper than sorrow, through torn sobs and cries toward the consummation of his heart's ultimate need. (7.107)
What is Wilhelm's ultimate need? Is it to feel part of a "larger body" of humankind, or is to be freed from his obligations and responsibilities by disappearing, hiding himself "in the center of a crowd"?