How we cite our quotes: (Page number)
Quote #1
"Ladies and gentlemen. This train is now out of service. Do yourself a favor. Get out of here. You will find God if you look for him." We all get out of the train, somewhere between relieved and angry. Everyone's got someplace to be. Finding God is not on the schedule. (45)
The train conductor's evangelical speech doesn't cause any of his passengers to fall over in their seats begging for forgiveness, but the mini-sermon does prompt Daniel to be on high alert for “signs.” Conveniently, those signs lead him right to Natasha.
Quote #2
There's a pure kind of joy in the certainty of belief. The certainty that your life has purpose and meaning. That, though your earthly life may be hard, there's a better place in your future, and God has a plan to get you there. That all the things that have happened to him, even the bad, have happened for a reason. (48)
It's interesting that the train conductor and Natasha had such opposite reactions to heartbreak, especially because both characters shared the thought that if somebody could just stop loving you, they must never have loved you at all. Natasha reacted to her ex-boyfriend cheating on her by reminding herself that emotions are just chemical reactions in the brain, and somebody else's choices shouldn't have some deeper, life-altering meaning for her. Meanwhile, the conductor was incredibly depressed after his divorce, and he ultimately turned to religion to make himself feel better.
Quote #3
"Things happen for a reason, Tasha." Usually people say it when something goes wrong, but not too wrong. A nonfatal car accident. A sprained ankle instead of a broken one. Tellingly, my mom has not said it in reference to our deportation. What reason could there be for this awful thing happening? My dad, whose fault this whole thing is, says, "You can't always see God's plan." I want to tell him that maybe he shouldn't leave everything up to God and that hoping against hope is not a life strategy, but that would mean I would have to talk to him, and I don't want to talk to him. (34)
It's fun to look at both sides of this quote: Yes, it majorly stinks that Natasha is being deported due to her father's blabbermouth. On the flip side, if Natasha and her family weren't being deported, she would have been in school instead of outside the USCIS building, and she wouldn't have met Daniel. So could her parents be right that everything happens for a reason, or is it just a crazy coincidence that she and Daniel both happened to skip school and be in the same area of town on the same day?