How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Title.Paragraph)
Quote #1
"The stories Miss Wilcox sent to New York weren't about kings or musketeers," Weaver said. "That one about the hermit Alvah Dunning and his Christmas all by himself, that was the best story I ever read."
"And old Sam Dunnigan wrapping up his poor dead niece and keeping her in the icehouse all winter till she could be buried," Minnie added. (3.abecedarian.68-69)
Even early in A Northern Light, Mattie's drawn to the compelling nature of both her community and the reality of life within her community. And her friends realize that the reality of their lives is far more interesting to them than some of the more elusive topics of literature.
Quote #2
Fesole, Valdarno, Vallombrosa… Where in blazes are those places? I wondered. Why couldn't Satan have decided to visit the North Woods? Old Forge, maybe, or even Eagle Bay. Why didn't he talk like real people did? With a cripes or a jeezum thrown in now and again. Why did little towns in Herkimer County never get a mention in anybody's book? Why was it always other places and other lives that mattered? (6.somniferous.9)
Here's the crux of Mattie's problem with classic, canonical literature like John Milton's Paradise Lost: she can't relate to it. And she feels like her life, and the lives of the people around her, aren't important. Thank goodness she eventually realizes that the world in which she's living is one of the most important stories she can tell after all.
Quote #3
I have read so many books, and not one of them tells the truth about babies. Dickens doesn't. Oliver's mother just dies in childbirth and that's that. Bronte doesn't. Catherine Earnshaw just has her daughter and that's that. There's no blood, no sweat, no pain, no fear, no heat, no stink.
Writers are damned liars. Every single one of them. (9.wan.48-49)
Mattie's just seen her friend Minnie undergo the agony of childbirth, and it seriously affects her view on marriage and childbirth, especially because she's never seen the truth of birth before. But more importantly, Mattie accuses her precious books of lying to her—and no one likes a liar.