How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #1
I am dying: it's a beautiful word. Like the long slow sigh of a cello: dying. But the sound of it is the only beautiful thing about it. (1.1)
We're not sure the first thing that comes to mind when we hear the word dying is beautiful, but we do understand the distinction Gabriel makes here. It might be that the word sounds like something desirable, but the act definitely is not. Still, he's the one who forces himself into this position.
Quote #2
He knows it, and in his muffled smile I see my future. Still, part of me is proud to be dying such a tricky death. (5.56)
When the doc doesn't know how to help Gabriel, he likes it. This is a big hint to us that Gabriel isn't diagnosed with a run-of-the-mill cancer or knowable disease, plus we get the sense that he's not all that upset about going.
Quote #3
I dared not call my mother. I sagged on the floor, paralyzed. I did not want to stay, yet I didn't dare to leave. I sensed that he was dead, but wasn't sure if death was forever. It seemed best to stay nearby, in case the chance came to make everything changed. (7.102)
As Gabriel finds Vernon—dead—he's flooded with a combination of emotions: fear, sorrow, happiness, guilt, you name it. What's more? He's not even certain what death means at this point, and he admits here that he's not sure if death lasts forever.
Quote #4
Life is lived on the inside. What's outside doesn't matter. (15.5)
Or does it? Gabriel might like to tell himself this philosophical truth, but we're not sure his life actually corroborates it in any capacity. After all, on the inside of him is Finnigan and his evil plan to seek revenge wherever he goes. Is that what really matters?
Quote #5
My life was pouring out my feet and seeping through cracks in the floor; yet still I knelt and did not move, for fear she'd let go of my hands. Let me stay, I wanted to beg: Please don't make me go. (17.42)
Here, Gabriel pleads with a god—that is, if he believes in one—to let him stay on the earth and keep living. You might think he's gone soft, but actually, he just wants to see Evangeline one last time; he doesn't seem to want to keep living beyond that, though.
Quote #6
I've been fearing the grave, its loneliness—yet I'm alone now. I have waited years for her to come here, but she's never arrived. I've been worried I'll lie forever unvisited, yet that's already the way things are. (19.3)
Poor Gabriel. Even though he makes his bed—literally—when it comes to his death, it's sad to see him lie in it all by his lonesome. He wishes he had company, yet he realizes that he's just as alone on this side of the grave as he is in the ground.
Quote #7
"I know why you're dying, Gabriel." He looks at me with shards of curiosity. "You'd rather die than live with everything that's happened. The hatchet. The humiliation." (20.11)
It doesn't take Finnigan long to figure things out. He knows Gabriel better than anyone else, and he gets that his buddy doesn't want people to alienate him anymore. He's already a social outcast, so things are only bound to get worse once everyone finds out he murdered his parents in cold blood.
Quote #8
"But the thing is—you guessed wrong, Finnigan. I'm not dying from shame or for sympathy or to forget what I've done. None of that matters to me. I'm dying to kill you." (20.29)
Try again, Finnigan. Gabriel relishes the moment of telling Finnigan that he doesn't care much about popular opinion or gossip about him—instead, he's only killing himself to get rid of his evil alter ego. It's a pretty morbid way of looking at things, even for him.
Quote #9
I thought it would be difficult, even impossible, to will oneself to die; I've discovered that it's not. The body is a faithful servant: it knows when it's not wanted. There's nothing wrong with me—nothing found in a textbook, anyway. My illness comes from the time of chivalry and towers, of armor and sunken swords. It's a close relation to the fatally broken heart. Life is a skittish sprite—but it can be caught and tied down. It can be muzzled and deprived until its light begins to fade. (21.1)
When it comes down to it, death comes rather easily to Gabriel. This isn't necessarily because he's coldhearted or detached from society (although we don't doubt those play a part), though, and here he explains that it has to do with the fact that he's determined to die, so his body just goes along with the plan. It's as simple as that.
Quote #10
Every atom in me feels composed of lead. This is what dying is: a pull to the ground. I am thin as a shadow, yet clotted as dough, my blood as thickset as mud. (21.77)
Yikes. We know Gabriel has some dark moments, but hearing his descriptions of death really bum us out. The idea that he is being pulled to the ground is literal and figurative. He's imagining his body and self sinking from the earth to new depths. Eek, right?