How we cite our quotes: (Part.Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #1
I'd escaped from prison almost two years before, but the fact of the fugitive life is that you have to keep on escaping, every day and every night. (1.1.9)
Lin might have busted out of the slammer, but he can't escape the fact that he's been branded as a criminal and has some time to do. Here's where criminality as a concept starts to become clear. It's not just that he committed a crime once. It's that he is a criminal, like it's a part of him that he can't shake.
Quote #2
I was Australia's most wanted man, escaped from a jail term of twenty years for armed robberies, and a hot new name on the Interpol fugitive list. (1.1.98)
We can't help but think that Lin sounds a little bit braggy about all of this. Seriously, "hot new name"? What, is he Lupita Nyong'o? But you can't really blame him. Most wanted lists are kind of like top 40 charts—they make criminals famous, and fame is, well, hot.
Quote #3
The traders in the street stalls outside sold counterfeits of Lacoste, Cardin, and Cartier with a certain impudent panache, the taxi drivers parked along the street accepted tips to tilt their mirrors away from the unlawful or forbidden acts that took place on the seats behind them, and a number of the cops who attended to their duties with diligence, at the station across the road, had paid hefty bribes for the privilege of that lucrative posting in the city centre. (1.2.112)
So, you're saying Bombay might have a teensy weensy problem with criminality? Lin is giving us the lowdown on how every single citizen participates in corruption, each in his or her own special way. It's not just the big bad guys who make the city lawless; it's a culture of corruption.
Quote #4
"Civilisation, after all, is defined by what we forbid, more than what we permit." (1.2.162)
Didier is just chock full of one-liners, and this one actually had us thinking for a while. So it's not so interesting that we eat animal meat, but rather that we don't eat human meat, according to him. What does our prohibition of cannibalism tell us about civilization, then? Maybe that it's all about barely keeping it together, keeping us from annihilating the human race.
Quote #5
The first rule of black business everywhere is: never let anyone know what you're thinking. Didier's corollary to the rule was: always know what the other thinks of you. (1.2.196)
"Black business," as Lin calls it, is all illegal trade, the black market. It's not so much that there are clear victims or that it's a violent crime. It's more buying and selling things without paying the taxes or going through all the regulatory paperwork. It can also, of course, refer to trade in illegal items like drugs or arms.
Quote #6
There's a special sleight of hand that's peculiar to policemen: the conjuring trick that palms and conceals banknotes with a skill that experienced shell-game swindlers envy. (1.3.132)
Lin compares the cops to magicians with phrases like "sleight of hand" and "conjuring trick." They can make money disappear with an abracadabra. This ability, we have to assume, is not part of standard police academy training. But the fact that they can accept a bribe so easily and nonchalantly means that they are living in a corrupt system.
Quote #7
A moment before, I had been drifting toward sleep. Suddenly I was hard awake. I plunged into memories and thoughts of my daughter, my parents, my brother; of the crimes I'd committed, and the loves I'd betrayed and lost forever. (2.9.67)
Up until this point, visiting Prabaker's village, Lin doesn't seem to think too much about what his life of crime has meant for others. He's been focused on how awful things are for him, how it's not exactly his fault because he was on drugs, and how of course he had to escape from prison because it was inhumane. Now he is seeing the effects his actions had on others.
Quote #8
It was technically illegal to sleep on the streets in Bombay. The cops enforced the regulation, but they were as pragmatic about it as they were about enforcing the laws against prostitution on the Street of Ten Thousand Whores. (2.9.71)
That little adverb, "technically," changes the meaning of the adjective "illegal." Talk about a modifier. When something is only "technically illegal" it's understood to be a victimless, unenforced crime. And poverty, in Bombay, is basically, technically, illegal. The cops realize how crazy it is to imprison people for sleeping on the streets when they've got nowhere else to go, so they are realistic about their roundups.
Quote #9
The worst thing about corruption as a system of governance, Didier once said, is that it works so well. (2.9.112)
Oh, Didier, you snarky, ironic Frenchman. Unfortunately, he's pointing out a super-widespread problem in Bombay, where everyone from the taxi drivers to the highest-ranking officials are corrupt (see the quotes above). The idea that it "works so well," seems crazy, but from Lin's description it does "work."
Quote #10
Working for Abdel Khader Khan was my first real instruction in organized crime—until then I'd been no more than a desperate man, doing stupid, cowardly things to feed a stupid, cowardly heroin habit, and then a desperate exile earning small commissions on random deals. (3.22.1)
What's the difference between a smalltime crook and a mobster? Here it is. Lin, before he meets Khaderbhai, just commits his crimes in order to pay for drugs or survive in the slum. It's like doing odd jobs to make enough cash for a concert. Joining Khader's operation, though, serves a higher purpose. It's like joining the military, or working for a big corporation.