The Road Sections 1-10 Quotes

The Road Sections 1-10 Quotes

How we cite the quotes:
Citations follow this format: (Section.Paragraph)

Quote 4

A quarter mile down the road he stopped and looked back. We're not thinking, he said. We have to go back. He pushed the cart off the road and tilted it over where it could not be seen and they left their packs and went back to the station. In the service bay he dragged out the steel trashdrum and tipped it over and pawed out all the quart plastic oilbottles. Then they sat in the floor decanting them of their dregs one by one, leaving the bottles to stand upside down draining into a pan until at the end they had almost a half quart of motor oil. He screwed down the plastic cap and wiped the bottle off with a rag and hefted it in his hand. Oil for their little slutlamp to light the long gray dusks, the long gray dawns. (7.1)

By "strength and skill," we don't mean just a WWE-style fighting ability. In addition to combat skills, we also mean something like "resourcefulness" or "cleverness." For example, The Man constantly rigs stuff and builds fires. Think MacGyver in a post-apocalyptic setting. Although The Man doesn't build anything in this passage, he does have the following smart thought: "There's probably a tiny bit of oil in each plastic bottle in the trash can at the gas station. If we drain each one, we might have enough oil for our lamp." Very resourceful.