How we cite our quotes: In consultation with my editor, we decided (against standard practice) to go with page numbers—since The Sunset Limited is one long act and it would be unwieldy and impractical to number all the lines.
Quote #1
WHITE: This place. It's a horrible place. Full of horrible people.
BLACK: Oh my.
WHITE: You must know these people are not worth saving. Even if they could be saved. Which they cant. You must know that.
BLACK: Well, I always liked a challenge. (40)
White sees the ghetto where Black lives as a place completely devoid of goodness, so in his eye, it's not worthy of compassion. But Black, to the contrary, wants to bring compassion to the place where it's most needed.
Quote #2
BLACK: […] Once he's quit breathin you cant help him no more. After that he's in the hands of other parties. So you got to look after him now. You might even want to monitor his train schedule. (77)
When White points out that there's "no ministry in hell" and that "God gives up at some point," Black argues that's why you need to love your brother now and have mercy. It's now or never for Black.
Quote #3
WHITE: And [Jesus is] interested in coming here to this cesspool and salvaging what everybody knows is unsalvageable. Why would he do that? You said he didn't have a lot of free time. Why would he come here? What would be the difference to him between a building that was morally and spiritually vacant and one that was just plain empty? (77)
White challenges the very idea that people are capable of salvation. He doesn't believe that even if there were a God, the dude (or dudette) would even waste time on humans. In White's view, the world is just that depraved.
Quote #4
BLACK: I see a different truth. Settin right cross the table from me.
WHITE: Which is?
BLACK: That you must love your brother or die. (121)
Black indicates that the only alternative to loving your fellow human is death—maybe not literal death (though that's where White's headed), but spiritual death, or being dead on the inside.
Quote #5
WHITE: Well, the trick bag seems to have shaped itself into some sort of communal misery wherein one finds salvation by consorting among the loathsome. (128)
White claims that Black's vision of brotherly love is really just a shared misery; it's not consoling. Since he sees the junkies Black helps as being entirely "loathsome"—as opposed to people with good and bad in them—he doesn't see any point in aiding them. Misery seems to spread like an infection to White.
Quote #6
WHITE: […] You say that I want God's love. I dont. Perhaps I want forgiveness, but there is no one to ask it of. (141)
Earlier, Black suggests that human beings act like they want any number of different things, when what they really want is God's love—they're just hiding from it. White flat-out denies this… but he admits he wants forgiveness. Why? What's bothering him? Not going to see his dying father? Or is it something else, something unknown?
Quote #7
BLACK: Professor? I know you dont mean them words. Professor? I'm goin to be there in the morning. I'll be there. You hear? I'll be there in the mornin."(142)
Black still refuses to fully give up on White. Who knows if he will be able to be there in the morning? But since he needs to love his brother—which means White—he has to try. Even if the person he's trying to help doesn't want his help, he feels obliged to extend it.