How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #7
All his photographs begin in his memory. That is the point. He might be the only man on earth who can photograph the past. (13.4)
Just like when a friend of yours is bragging that she can totally handle wearing a beard made out of living bees, this is one of those situations where someone is super proud of himself for doing something that's basically a terrible idea.
Quote #8
Codi, please tell me what you hear about this. I can't stand to think it could be the same amnesiac thing, big news for one day and then forgotten. Nobody here can eat or talk. There are dark stains all over the cement floor of the church. It's not a thing you forget. (16.58)
Hello, foreshadowing. You're going to want to remember this one later, when Hallie has been kidnapped and Codi is trying to get the government to pay attention.
Quote #9
Then, for just a minute—they always have to do this—he turned off the lights. The darkness was absolute. I grabbed for Emelina's arm as the ceilings and walls came rushing up to me face. I felt choked by my own tongue. [...] And then while we all still waited I understood that the terror of my recurring dream was not about losing just vision, but the whole of myself, whatever that was. What you lose win blindness is the space around you, the place where you are, and without that you might no exist. You could be nowhere at all. (17.129)
The thing about this quote is that while it doesn't immediately seem connected to memory, it is—first because Codi is remembering her reoccurring dream, which of course turns out to be a memory from being born, but also because in Animal Dreams, vision, memory, and identity are connected. Here Codi is connecting blindness to ignorance of her own past and to her own lack of self-knowledge. If we're putting together a thesis on vision, memory and identity in this novel, then this quote is central.