How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #4
The Theorem rests upon the validity of my long-standing argument that the world contains precisely two kinds of people: Dumpers and Dumpees. Everyone is predisposed to being either one or the other, but of course not all people are COMPLETE Dumpers or Dumpees. (7.40)
Colin soon finds out that even he isn't a total dumpee—he dumped K-3, making him not firmly in one category or the other either. Hmm… perhaps that's no coincidence. Over the course of the novel, Colin's definition and understanding of love grows as he begins to work, solve, and dispute his theorem.
Quote #5
But it only took a few more Katherines for him to look back nostalgically upon The Great One as the perfect spokesperson for the Katherine Phenomenon. Their three-minute relationship was the thing itself in its most unadulterated form. It was the immutable tango between the Dumper and the Dumpee: the coming and the seeing and the conquering and the returning home. (7.90)
It's no wonder Colin's got a messed-up love life: he's basing his whole relationship beliefs on a mini-relationship that happened when he was a kid. It's the Katherine that begins it all, and the one that makes him jumble all women up in his head until he can't tell them apart any more.
Quote #6
"My Theorem will tell the story. Each graph with a beginning and a middle and an end."
"There's no romance in geometry," Lindsey answered. "Just you wait." (9.113-114)
Colin's confident that his theorem will be able to tell the story that romance can't on its own. Lindsey, on the other hand, is confident he is wrong. The question is: at the end of the novel, who is right?