How we cite our quotes: Citations follow this format: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #4
Changed, I headed back through the mud. I was drenched; anybody could see it was time to come in out of the rain (1.20).
Check that out – Gene is "changed" simply by having visited the tree, by having returned to Devon at all, maybe even by his telling of his story. The question, then, is…HOW is Gene changed?
Quote #5
The effect of his injury on the masters seemed deeper than after other disasters I remembered there. It was as though they felt it was especially unfair that it should strike one of the sixteen-year-old, one of the few young men who could be free and happy in the summer of 1942 (5.2).
Look at how Gene's memory affects the "facts" of the story. He attributes to the masters his own feelings, that he was fortunate that summer to be free and happy.
Quote #6
It wasn't the cider which made me surpass myself, it was this liberation we had torn from the gray encroachments of 1943, the escape we had concocted, this afternoon of momentary, illusory, and separate peace (9.64).
The "peace" that Gene repeatedly identifies at Devon is only obtained by escaping from the current times – by escaping from war.