How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #4
History [...] has to be the worst smell in the world. (18.48)
We hate to disagree with Bunny, here, but there's something about the smell of books that gets us all tingly. Okay, but let's take it a little less literally: history sometimes really does stink. It's full of war and death and betrayal, and it can utterly destroy innocent people (or deer) who happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Quote #5
History began when the universe began with a 'Big Bang,' which is one reason why most people think history has to be about a big event like a catastrophe or a moment of divine creation, but every living soul is a book of their own history, which sits on the ever-growing shelf in the library of human memories. (21.42)
Here, Miss Volker seems to see history as a giant library of human memories, and each individual life makes up one slice—or book—of humanity's story. What's cool about this is that it makes all the individual, humble, private lives just as important as the big, world-changing events. History doesn't just have to be the story of great men. It can also be the stories of perfectly ordinary men—and women, for that matter.
Quote #6
A tombstone is a carved page in a book of human history. (23.17)
Maybe Mr. Huffer isn't just greedy after all. He's angry that Mrs. Vinyl's adult kids have decided to cremate her, but he seems to recognize that burial and the tombstone is a way of preserving memories of the dead, and not just ways to maximize his profits. And he has a point—grave rubbings are pretty cool.