How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Title.Paragraph)
Quote #4
"You could loan it to me. I'd pay it all back… every penny of it. Please, Aunt Josie?" I spoke those last words in a whisper.
My aunt didn't reply right away; she just looked at me in such a way that I suddenly knew just how Hester Prynne felt when she had to stand on that scaffold. (12.UriahtheHittite,stinkpot,warthog.59-60)
Even though Mattie thinks that the literature she reads doesn't necessarily relate to her, there are moments when it clearly does. And when Aunt Josie refuses to give Mattie money to go to Barnard, Mattie connects how she feels to how a character in a book feels. Notably, when Mattie compares her life to literary characters in A Northern Light, it's usually to characters who are undergoing stress or conflict.
Quote #5
"She don't need to make something more. She's fine as she is. There ain't a thing wrong with her."
"She could be a writer, sir. A real one. A good one."
"She's already a writer. She writes stories and poems in them notebooks of hers all the time."
"But she needs the challenge of a real college curriculum, and the guidance of talented teachers, to improve. She needs exposure to emerging voices, to criticism and theory. She needs to be around people who can nurture her talent and develop it." (17.furtive.29-32)
When Mattie and her sisters overhear the conversation between Miss Wilcox and Pa, Mattie hears what she already knows about being a writer: it's hard work, and Pa has some serious reservations about her going down this path. Fingers crossed he comes around… spoiler alert: he does.
Quote #6
"I heard what you said, it just don't make sense. Why do you always want to read about other people's lives, Matt? Ain't your own good enough for you?"
I didn't reply to that because I knew my voice would quaver if I did. (21.auger.51-52)
Unfortunately, Royal hits Mattie's conundrum right on the head. She's not sure if her life is good enough for her. She's got these ambitions to study and write for a living, but she's not sure what she's willing to sacrifice to achieve these ambitions. It doesn't help that Royal scorns Mattie's love of books and literature as worthless. (Seriously, girl, what do you see in him?)