How we cite our quotes: (Volume.Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #1
Yet across the gulf of space, minds that are to our minds as ours are to those of the beasts that perish, intellects vast and cool and unsympathetic, regarded this earth with envious eyes, and slowly and surely drew their plans against us. (1.1.1)
In the beginning of the book, the narrator wants to make sure we understand that the Martians are not like humans. They come from far away ("across the gulf of space"), they make us look like animals, they envy us, and they plot against us. The rest of the chapter includes a few other general comments about how the Martians are different than us ("we men […] must be to them at least as alien and lowly as are the monkeys and lemurs to us" [1.1.5]). Why is the narrator laying it on so thick?
Quote #2
And before we judge of them too harshly we must remember what ruthless and utter destruction our own species has wrought, not only upon animals, such as the vanished bison and the dodo, but upon its inferior races. The Tasmanians, in spite of their human likeness, were entirely swept out of existence in a war of extermination waged by European immigrants, in the space of fifty years. Are we such apostles of mercy as to complain if the Martians warred in the same spirit? (1.1.6)
If you were chugging along in 1.1, nodding along with the narrator when he was telling us how different the Martians are from humans, this sentence should stop you. Sure, the Martians are from far away, but humans and Martians both make war "in the same spirit." What does it mean that humans and Martians can have some similar "spirit"? That's word is open to a lot of interpretation.
Quote #3
I think everyone expected to see a man emerge – possibly something a little unlike us terrestrial men, but in all essentials a man. I know I did. (1.4.12)
The narrator – well, just about everyone in the novel, really – makes the mistake of thinking that the Martians are going to be like us. Here, the narrator makes that mistake about a physical similarity. Elsewhere, before the Martian cylinder is opened, he makes the mistake of supposing that the aliens might have sent a written message, but who says the Martians even have a written language? Or how about when Ogilvy leads a group of people to meet the Martians while waving a white flag. Seriously? If you think that aliens will understand what a white flag means, then you shouldn't get to be in charge of making contact with aliens.
Quote #4
Those who have never seen a living Martian can scarcely imagine the strange horror of its appearance. […] Even at this first encounter, this first glimpse, I was overcome with disgust and dread. (1.4.16)
The Martians aren't just different from humans, they're also disgusting. Now, are those two things – difference and disgust – related? We think they might be. That is, we can imagine a version of this book in which the Martians come out and they're totally different from us (like here), but they're beautiful. It's not that difference leads to disgust. But it's harder for us to imagine a book in which the aliens are still disgusting (like here), but not different. In some way, it seems like the Martians have to be recognizably different from us before they can be disgusting.
Quote #5
He [a soldier] turned, stared, bawled something about "crawling out in a thing like a dish cover"… (1.9.41)
If you see something that's totally foreign, how can you describe it? The soldier here finds a quick way to describe something unfamiliar: he makes a comparison between the unknown thing (the Martian machinery) and a known thing (a dish cover). (Wells' audience would know what a dish cover is, even if we don't use them so much anymore.) This is a quick way to describe something foreign, but there is a danger here: what if your description makes something seem too familiar? After all, who is going to be afraid of a dish cover? Not many people – but everyone here should be afraid of the Martian tripod.
Quote #6
Or did a Martian sit within each, ruling, directing, using, much as a man's brain sits and rules in his body? I began to compare the things to human machines, to ask myself for the first time in my life how an ironclad or a steam engine would seem to an intelligent lower animal. (1.11.8)
We get a lot of talk in this book about how humans are like animals, and what would animals think, and how the narrator would never kill and eat a dog. (Actually, scratch that last one. The narrator totally wants to kill and eat a dog in Book 2, Chapter 5). But people are only like animals because… wait for it… the Martians are like people. Both Martians and humans use large mechanical vehicles that may scare the heck out of lower animals. (For more on how people are compared to animals in this book, check out "Symbolism, Imagery, Allegory.")
Quote #7
She [Mrs. Elphinstone] had never been out of England before, she would rather die than trust herself friendless in a foreign country, and so forth. She seemed, poor woman, to imagine that the French and the Martians might prove very similar. (1.17.13)
We just threw this one in because it's funny. But why is it funny? (We like to ruin jokes by asking how they work.) For one thing, it's clear that the Martians and the French aren't really all that similar – there are totally different levels of foreignness here. For another, Mrs. Elphinstone is confusing something mildly foreign (the French) with something totally foreign (the Martians), simply because they are both different from what she's used to. Really, though, Mrs. Elphinstone will get along fine enough with the French. Does that mean it's possible that people could get along with the Martians, too, given some time?
Quote #8
To me it is quite credible that the Martians may be descended from beings not unlike ourselves… (2.2.21)
This is a great quote. The narrator starts the book with the idea that the Martians are totally different than humans (their minds are so much better than ours and they look so different). Then moves on to the idea that maybe we do share some similarities. And now, the big reveal: while the Martians seem so monstrous to us, it's possible that we will evolve into them.
Quote #9
They have become practically mere brains, wearing different bodies according to their needs just as men wear suits of clothes and take a bicycle in a hurry or an umbrella in the wet. (2.2.25)
Okay, even if we might be related to the Martians – even if we might evolve into them – we should admit that there are still some big differences. After all, humans are not "mere brains." However, just as soon as the narrator opens up that difference, he makes the connection between us and Martians: we all use technology to adapt to different situations. (Also, as you probably gathered from "Setting," we love it whenever the narrator mentions bicycles.)
Quote #10
The desolating cry worked upon my mind. The mood that had sustained me passed. The wailing took possession of me. I found I was intensely weary, footsore, and now again hungry and thirsty. (2.8.9)
For us, the ending of the book is confusing and oddly moving. We don't celebrate (that much) when the Martians have died out because a) dying of a cold is so funny it's almost sad, and b) the Martians have turned out to be just like us. Here the narrator even finds himself moved by the Martians' wailing. Even if we have all this difference between us, the ending seems to say that there's something that connects us all.