How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #1
"I will not conjugate the verb," said Louis, "until Bernard has said it. My father is a banker in Brisbane and I speak with an Australian accent. I will wait and copy Bernard. He is English. They are all English. Susan's father is a clergyman. Rhoda has no father. Bernard and Neville are the sons of gentlemen. Jinny lives with her grandmother in London." (1b.55)
Here, Louis gives us a helpful overview of everyone's origins and tunes us into one of his major preoccupations: the fact that his father is (wait for it)... Australian. Wait, what's the scandal? Even though an Australian accent is awesome, Louis is mortified by it.
Quote #2
"My uncle is the best shot in England. My cousin is Master of Foxhounds." Boasting begins. And I cannot boast, for my father is a banker in Brisbane, and I speak with an Australian accent." (2b.3)
Poor Louis is still feeling pretty down about his accent and the fact that his father is a banker… particularly when he has to endure a train ride with a bunch of boys boasting about how their fathers are masters of the universe.
Quote #3
"Bernard has gone," said Neville, "without a ticket. He has escaped us, making a phrase, waving his hand. He talked as easily to the horse-breeder or to the plumber as to us. The plumber accepted him with devotion." (2b.56)
On a later train ride, Bernard chats with working class people (e.g., plumbers and horse-breeders), which Neville seems to find oddly fascinating
Quote #4
"Now I pretend again to read. I raise my book, till it almost covers my eyes. But I cannot read in the presence of horse-dealers and plumbers. I have no power of ingratiating myself. I do not admire that man; he does not admire me. Let me at least be honest. Let me denounce this piffling, trifling, self-satisfied world; these horse-hair seats; these coloured photographs of piers and parades. I could shriek aloud at the smug self-satisfaction, at the mediocrity of this world, which breeds horse-dealers with coral ornaments hanging from their watch-chains." (2b.57)
Neville, meanwhile, seems pretty ambivalent about interacting with people whose station is lower than his own, alternately asserting his superiority to them. It's clear that he doesn't share Bernard's talent for talking to people different from himself.
Quote #5
"His thin lips are somewhat pursed; his cheeks are pale; he pores in an office over some obscure commercial document. 'My father, a banker at Brisbane'—being ashamed of him he always talks of him—failed. So he sits in an office, Louis the best scholar in the school." (3b.24)
Here, Bernard offers external verification that Louis was, indeed, an exceptional scholar, and it seems that Bernard thinks it's kind of a waste that he is using those talents on an office job. Apparently, the intensity of Louis's shame is evident to everyone because he constantly returns to the topic of his father, his biggest source of shame. Is anyone else suddenly feeling pretty bad for Louis's daddy?
Quote #6
"I like to be asked to come to Mr. Burchard's private room and report on our commitments to China. I hope to inherit an arm-chair and a Turkey carpet. My shoulder is to the wheel; I roll the dark before me, spreading commerce where there was chaos in the far parts of the world. If I press on from chaos making order, I shall find myself where Chatham stood, and Pitt, Burke and Sir Robert Peel. Thus I expunge certain stains, and erase old defilements; the woman who gave me a flag from the top of the Christmas tree; my accent; beatings and other tortures; the boasting boys; my father, a banker at Brisbane." (6b.4)
Having now grown up and risen in his career, Louis wastes no time in telling the reader about all the material gains his promotions and success have entailed. He asserts that his successes have helped him shrug off the humiliations of the past, including his poor banker daddy and other "tortures."
Quote #7
"This is life. If I press on, I shall inherit a chair and a rug; a place in Surrey with glass houses, and some rare conifer, melon or flowering tree which other merchants will envy. Yet I still keep my attic room. There I open the usual little book; there I watch the rain glisten on the tiles till they shine like a policeman's waterproof; there I see the broken windows in poor people's houses; the lean cats; some slattern squinting in a cracked looking-glass as she arranges her face for the street corner; there Rhoda sometimes comes. For we are lovers." (6b.6)
Despite his access to the finer things, Louis appears to remain attracted to less savory elements of city life as well, maintaining an attic room from which he can stare at a "slattern" staring in a cracked mirror and skinny cats, both of which seem to be staples of a more impoverished life than he currently enjoys.
Quote #8
"Yet when six o'clock comes and I touch my hat to the commissionaire, being always too effusive in ceremony since I desire so much to be accepted; and struggle, leaning against the wind, buttoned up, with my jaws blue and my eyes running water, I wish that a little typist would cuddle on my knees; I think that my favourite dish is liver and bacon; and so am apt to wander to the river, to the narrow streets where there are frequent public-houses, and the shadows of ships passing at the end of the street, and women fighting. But I say to myself, recovering my sanity, Mr. Prentice at four, Mr. Eyres at four-thirty. The hatchet must fall on the block; the oak must be cleft to the centre. The weight of the world is on my shoulders. Here is the pen and the paper; on the letters in the wire basket I sign my name, I, I, and again I." (6b.9)
Here, Louis struggles with his desire to be accepted in his new world and his sense that he's a fraud. He tries to tamp down his seedier tastes with reminders about his appointments and his duties at work.
Quote #9
"I am immensely respectable. All the young ladies in the office acknowledge my entrance. I can dine where I like now, and without vanity may suppose that I shall soon acquire a house in Surrey, two cars, a conservatory and some rare species of melon. But I still return, I still come back to my attic, hang up my hat and resume in solitude that curious attempt which I have made since I brought down my fist on my master's grained oak door. I open a little book. I read one poem. One poem is enough." (7b.28).
In this moment, Louis once again mentions the distinction between the world of his professional life and that of his attic room (which he maintains in spite of his increasing wealth and prestige). Interestingly, the attic is where he can rekindle his scholarly and literary interests.
Quote #10
I thought how Louis would mount those steps in his neat suit with his cane in his hand and his angular, rather detached gait. With his Australian accent ("My father, a banker at Brisbane") he would come, I thought, with greater respect to these old ceremonies than I do, who have heard the same lullabies for a thousand years. (9b.54)
Here, Bernard references Louis's overzealousness with respect to English ceremonies, which stems from his status as an outsider (and totally marks him as even more of an outsider).