How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #7
Bowman wondered if this was indeed his own galaxy, seen from a point much closer to its brilliant, crowded center.
He hoped that it was; then he would not be so far from home. But this, he realized at once, was a childish thought. He was so inconceivably remote from the Solar System that it made little difference whether he was in his own galaxy or the most distant one that any telescope had ever glimpsed. (42.3-4)
Bowman is more isolated here than any human has ever been. Yet he chides himself for wishing he was a little closer to home. It's like the novel doesn't want you to think for a second that Bowman might be illogical, or might except illogical thoughts. No matter how isolated, he's just sane, stable, boring old Bowman. We've got to give him props for consistency.
Quote #8
He was moving through a new order of creation, of which few men had ever dreamed. Beyond the realm of sea and land and air and space lay the realms of fire, which he alone had been privileged to glimpse. It was too much to expect that he would also understand. (43.16)
Bowman is going where no one has gone before. He is, literally, far out.
Quote #9
David Bowman moved into a realm of consciousness that no man had experienced before. (45.4)
The strait-laced Bowman becomes the ultimate hippie, expanding his consciousness the natural way, via alien intervention. (The visuals for 2001 in the film are extremely trippy; Bowman may be a boring square, but the aliens definitely listen to the Beatles.)