Quote 1
"What traitors books can be! You think they’re backing you up, and then they turn on you. Others can use them, too, and there you are, lost in the middle of the moor, in a great welter of nouns and verbs and adjectives." (2.386)
Beatty misses the point. The reason books are valuable is because they are contradictory, conflicted, and confusing. It means that the reader can – or has to – think for himself, as Montag so desperately wants to himself.
Quote 2
"Surely you remember the boy in your own school class who was exceptionally ‘bright,’ did most of the reciting and answering while the others sat like so many leaden idols, hating him. And wasn't it this bright boy you selected for beatings and tortures after hours? Of course it was. We must all be alike. Not everyone born free and equal, as the Constitution says, but everyone made equal. Each man the image of every other; then all are happy, for there are no mountains to make them cower, to judge themselves against. So! A book is a loaded gun in the house next door. Burn it. Take the shot from the weapon. Breach man's mind. Who knows who might be the target of the well-read man? Me? I won't stomach them for a minute." (1.614)
Beatty cites many different reasons for the abolishment of books, but this one is perhaps the most terrifying. Fear and jealousy imagine intellectualism as a weapon. Bradbury reminds us that those who can not fight with words or ideas use violence as a substitute.
Quote 3
"Here or there, that's bound to occur. Clarisse McClellan? We've a record on her family. We've watched them carefully. Heredity and environment are funny things. You can't rid yourselves of all the odd ducks in just a few years. The home environment can undo a lot you try to do at school. That's why we've lowered the kindergarten age year after year until now we're almost snatching them from the cradle." (1.624)
The existence of people like Clarisse McClellan – or even like Guy Montag – makes Fahrenheit 451 an optimistic novel. It’s that whole "the human spirit prevails" thing.