How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #7
At the time, Inman had thought the boy a fool and had remained content to know our name for Orion's principal star and to let God keep His a dark secret. But he now wondered if the boy might have had a point about knowledge, or at least some varieties of it. (5.58)
Inman thinks this about a boy who said that God had his own name for Orion that humanity wasn't meant to know. The boy added that what mostly comes of knowledge is scenes like the scarred battlefield the men are on at the time. Are there some kinds of knowledge that are bad for people?
Quote #8
He slept some and listened to the fiddler and watched a woman telling fortunes by reading the pattern of leaves in a cup of herb tea, but he declined her offer to tell his own future for he figured he already had all the discouragement he needed. (5.121)
Sometimes a cliché is true: this would be funny if it weren't so sad.
Quote #9
All your grief hasn't changed a thing. What you have lost will not be returned to you. It will always be lost. You're left with only your scars to mark the void. All you can choose to do is go on or not. But if you go on, it's knowing you carry your scars with you. Nevertheless, over all those wasted years, he had held in his mind the wish to kiss her there at the back of her neck, and now he had done it. There was a redemption of some kind, he believed, in such complete fulfillment of a desire so long deferred. (18.93)
What's the difference between innocence and redemption in this book? How does this quote answer that question?