How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #1
Tally thought of Peris, and tried to remember the way he used to look back when he was Nose. Somehow, she couldn't recall his ugly face anymore. As if those few minutes of seeing him pretty had wiped out a lifetime of memories. All she could see now was pretty Peris, those eyes, that smile. (4.76)
The past is a major theme the book, which deals with fallen civilizations and ruins. But the past is also an issue on a smaller scale, as with Peris and Tally: they have this long history together—a whole lifetime (less than 16 years, sure)—but it's almost as if the surgery has wiped out that whole history. If they don't have any history together, are they still friends?
Quote #2
"You know," Shay said, "I read that the real Cleopatra wasn't even that great-looking. She seduced everyone with how clever she was."
"Yeah, right. And you've seen a picture of her?"
"They didn't have cameras back then, Squint."
"Duh. So how do you know she was ugly?"
"Because that's what historians wrote at the time." (5.10-15)
The only way this argument could be settled is by fighting in a gladiatorial arena. (But then, Tally probably doesn't know what gladiators are.) This discussion raises lots of good points and questions about history, like: (1) there are different ways to remember history (photos, written accounts, Twitter); and (2) sometimes our ideas about history might not be right (Cleo wasn't pretty, she was smart).
Quote #3
Tally brought her board to a sharp halt. The Rusty Ruins were the remains of an old city, a hulking reminder of back when there'd been way too many people, and everyone was incredibly stupid. And ugly. (6.22)
History is hard to remember, but it's a lot easier to remember when that history makes us feel better about ourselves. Like: did you know that everyone before us was dumb and we're the best? It's true. Or at least, Tally thinks that the people before were dumb and ugly—but that's us she's talking about. (She obviously doesn't know about Shmoop.)
Quote #4
Seeing them now, at night, the ruins felt much more real to Tally. On school trips, the teachers always made the Rusties out to be so stupid. You almost couldn't believe people lived like this, burning trees to clear land, burning oil for heat and power, setting the atmosphere on fire with their weapons. (8.7)
Tally's school teaches that the Rusties were dumb and ugly and couldn't dance. (Maybe not that last part.) This is a clear example of how the city where Tally lives uses the historical ruins to make a point. As Tally later notes, her city turns everything into "a bribe, a warning, or a lesson"—and that includes history (41.17).
Quote #5
"Probably a long time. You pass along stuff. You know, one person figures out how to trick their board, the next finds the rapids, the next makes it to the ruins." (8.60)
Here Shay tells Tally how the uglies have figured out the secret of the roller coaster (go fast, don't eat too much before). As Shay explains, this sort of knowledge gets built up by a bunch of uglies, with each generation passing on their memory to the next. (We see this in the book when Tally teaches the young uglies all her tricks.)
Quote #6
Apparently without magnets, it beat the air into submission with a half-invisible disk shimmering in the sun. (20.3)
This is our favorite example of Tally not knowing the history that we know: she thinks this vehicle has some sort of disk, when this vehicle (a helicopter) really has a set of fast-moving blades, like here. (It would be like Tally being mystified by some royalty named "Lady Gaga.") But of course we know that because it's our present, which is easier to know than the past.
Quote #7
"They aren't freaks," Shay said. "The weird thing is, these are famous people."
"Famous for what? Being hideous?"
"No. They're sports stars, actors, artists. The men with stringy hair are musicians, I think. The really ugly ones are politicians, and someone told me the fatties are mostly comedians."
"That's funny, as in strange," Tally said. "So this is what people looked like before the first pretty? How could anyone stand to open their eyes?" (24.22-5)
Again, we know more about Tally's history because we have MTV. (It's pretty funny how Shay thinks of these famous people: stringy hair = musicians; ugly = politicians, etc.) But one reason why history is so important in Uglies is because they do things differently back then. In Tally's day, there's only one way to be after 16—pretty. But in the past, there were lots of ways to be ugly.
Quote #8
"They don't want people to know what it was like before the operation. They want to keep you hating yourselves. Otherwise, it's too easy to get used to ugly faces, normal faces." (38.52)
And here's David, supporting our thought from the last quote. (Thanks, Dave, you're okay… for an ugly.) As he points out, Tally's city has to keep people from knowing too much about history; all the people need to know is that it was bad in the past because people were hideously freakish and now it's good because of the pretty surgery. Just don't look over there where the secret police are experimenting on people.
Quote #9
"Well, the Rusties did live in a house of cards, but someone gave it a pretty big shove. No one ever found out who. Maybe it was a Rusty weapon that got out of control. Maybe it was people in some poor country who didn't like the way the Rusties ran things. Maybe it was just an accident, like the flowers, or some lone scientist who wanted to mess things up." (40.45)
David may know more than Tally about the real history of the Rusties, but history can be very hard to pin down. Like a hyperactive butterfly. We may know a lot about the Rusties (they relied on oil, they had helicopters), but there's a lot of history that we might never know.
Quote #10
Tally shivered again, but not from the cold. It was hard to think of the Rusties as actual people, rather than as just an idiotic, dangerous, and sometimes comic force of history. But there were human beings down there, whatever was left of them after a couple of hundred years, still sitting in their blackened cars, as if still trying to escape their fate. (40.58)
It's hard to imagine strangers as real people with hopes and dreams and diets, especially when those people live in a different time period. (Not to bum you out, but every dead body in a car in the Rusty Ruins was once a person who had dreams and hopes.) And here's part of Tally's education process: not just realizing that the past was full of real people, but that her time will be the past for some future civilization.