How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #4
They advanced to within ten yards of Francis before a pebble rattled. The monk was murmuring the third Ave of the Fourth Glorious Mystery of the rosary when he happened to look around.
The arrow hit him squarely between the eyes.
"Eat! Eat! Eat!" the Pope's child cried. (11.81-83)
This scene reads like a grotesque re-imagining of some NatGeo special on predators and prey. Only the lions are mutants, and the gazelle is Brother Francis.
Quote #5
Dom Paulo felt the blackness beginning to gather. After twelve centuries, a little hope had come into the world—and then came an illiterate prince to ride roughshod over it with a barbarian horde and… (17.22)
In his book The Better Angels of Our Nature, Steven Pinker argues that "government, literacy, trade, and cosmopolitanism" have resulted in a sharp decrease in violence in the modern world (source). A Canticle for Leibowitz basically argues the opposite.
Quote #6
"And how will this come to pass?" [Thon Taddeo] paused and lowered his voice. "In the same way all change comes to pass, I fear. And I am sorry it is so. It will come to pass by violence and upheaval, by flame and by fury, for no change comes calmly over the world." (20.127)
What do you think: is Thon Taddeo's belief realistic or pessimistic? Can we learn to change without violence and upheaval, or will our primitive sides always prevail?