How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #1
Carlo and I med in medical school, [...] Along the way I'd landed a few presentable jobs, but in between I tended to drift, like a well-meaning visitor to this planet awaiting instructions. My career track had run straight down into the weedy lots on the rough side of town. It's the truth. For the last six months in Tucson I'd worked night shift at a 7-Eleven, selling beer and Alka-Seltzer to people who would have been better off home in bed. There wasn't a whole lot farther I could go. (2.12)
Medical school to gas station attendant is a pretty stiff drop in social capital, if not in pay. The real heart of this quote, though, is in the line about being a well-meaning visitor awaiting instructions. Codi is always looking for someone to tell her what it is she's here on earth for.
Quote #2
She'd expected (or feared) a little formality but they put her to work the day she arrived, wearing her one and only dress. "I'm in seventh heaven," she wrote, and I could see her hiking up that dress and striding across the plowed rows, leading a battery of stunned men. "This cotton's been getting sprayed to death and still eaten up with weevils. Cultivation practices are pitiful. I know exactly what to do. I think we'll get productivity up about 100 percent from last year. Can you imagine? You'd think it was Christmas, everybody's already talking about how the collective could use this prosperity: they could get a secondary-school teacher in here full-time, or a good adult-ed program." (12.9)
Hallie is basically the Joan of Arc of cotton cultivation. This is a pretty good illustration of exactly how it should feel to do what you love and be good at it—so take notes.
Quote #3
"Carlo's an emergency-room surgeon. A man that decides which way to sew a thumb back on would have a good hold on life, wouldn't you think? I just assumed it would rub off."
"Gross," Emelina remarked.
"I think it was the eyebrows. You know how he has those kind of arched, Italian eyebrows?"
"No, I never got to meet him. He was always at the hospital."
That was true. He was shy. He could face new flesh wounds each day at work, but he avoided actual people. "Well, he had this look," I said. "He always seemed right on the verge of saying something that would change your life. [...]"
"But he never did?"
"Nope. It was just his eyebrows."
[...]
Carlo had beautiful hands and a legendary sense of direction [...] The man had a compass in his cerebral cortex. And for all that, he'd still in the long run declined to be the guiding star I needed. (6.48-55)
Carlo himself seems well adjusted to his career—he's the kind of guy who never really finishes unpacking his suitcase before he moves on to the next place. Note, though, that he's associated with stars and the heavens. Considering that Animal Dreams repeatedly rejects the idea of heaven in favor of earth, it's probably a sign that his arched eyebrows aren't enough.