How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #1
The wind told me it's found. I jump from my tree (they are all my trees) and click for Surrender and breach the hill, him running in the lead. Surrender has heavy bones, heavy ears, a timber tail, a gate-post skull, but he's light as butter on his feet: he runs back and forth, up and down, flushing birds that flew off yesterday, chasing rabbits that are stew. (2.1)
Finnigan has a sense about the forest in a way that Gabriel and everyone else seem to lack. It's just one of the ways he shows off his spirituality, not in a religious, but more natural sense. This different spirituality is also a way of marking Finnigan as separate from himself for Gabriel.
Quote #2
This was true—I imagined my parents would very much relish having an angel for a son. Who, after all, would not? Still, I didn't like the idea. There was something soul-selling about it: somewhere in its gluey depths, there was a trick concealed. "But what about you?" I asked. "You'd be in trouble all the time." (5.33)
Immediately upon hearing that he will now behave well, Gabriel makes the jump to thinking about being an angel. Why? He's one for extremes. Plus, he thinks about this pact as giving him divine goodness in some way.
Quote #3
"That's not really a bad thing to do, is it? I mean, that's what God does, isn't it?" Finnigan glanced at me and splintered the twig and I could feel his mind ticking. I could feel him understanding what I said, and not liking it. Instinct warned me to be quiet, but I continued gamely on. As a partner in the pact, I wouldn't be censored by fear of him. I said, "Anyone would think you were the angel, not me." (9.59)
Hey, as long as God does it, it's cool, right? Finnigan thinks this reasoning is just fine, but we might question his motives. It's great to look to a deity for wisdom and guidance, but justification? Not so much.