How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #4
Even I, wanting so much to believe, could tell it was mimeographed. The only thing typed in was my name, and that had been misspelled. I was a fool, but I'm proud to say, not that big a fool. Heartsick, I ripped the letter down to its last exclamation point and flung it like confetti out into the water. (8.17)
This little moment takes place right after Louise gets her letter back from the company to which she sent her poetry/song lyrics. Turns out, it was all a scam to get you to pay to have your song lyrics taken. So much for youthful dreams of writing glory, right?
Quote #5
But even if he never told a soul, how was I to face him again? Just thinking of his smell, his feel, his hands, made my body go hot all over. "He's older than your grandmother," I kept saying to myself. "When your grandmother was a child, he was nearly a man already." My grandmother was sixty-three. She seemed like a hundred, but she was sixty-three. I knew because my father had been born when she was sixteen. The Captain had to be seventy or more. I was fourteen, for mercy's sake. Fourteen from seventy was fifty-six. Fifty-six. But then my mind would go to the curve of his perfect thumbnail, and my body would flame up like pine pitch. (11.39)
Being a teenager is tough, and Louise is having some pretty complicated feelings here. This is the first time she's felt anything romantic for another person, and she's not dealing too well. Of course, it's weird that the Captain is old enough to be her grandpa, but hey, hormones don't always make sense, do they?
Quote #6
I just shook my head, not trusting myself to reply. Why should it matter if I minded? How would that change anything? The Captain, who I'd always believed was different, had, like everyone else, chosen her over me. Since the day we were born, twins like Jacob and Esau, the younger had ruled the older. Did anyone ever say Esau and Jacob?
"Jacob have I loved …" Suddenly my stomach flipped. Who was speaking? I couldn't remember the passage. Was it Isaac, the father of the twins? No, even the Bible said that Isaac had favored Esau. Rebecca, the mother, perhaps? It was her conniving that helped Jacob steal the blessing from his brother. Rebecca—I had hated her from childhood, but somehow I knew that these were not her words […]
I took my Bible from our little crate bookcase, and bringing it over to the light, looked up the passage Grandma had cited. Romans, the ninth chapter and the thirteenth verse. The speaker was God.
I was shaking all over as I closed the book and got back under the covers. There was, then, no use struggling or even trying. It was God himself who hated me. And without cause. "Therefore," verse eighteen had gone on to rub it in, "hath he mercy on whom he will have mercy, and whom he will he hardeneth." God had chosen to hate me. And if my heart was hard, that was his doing as well. (15.7-9, 11-12)
This is a big moment for Louise. She's always clung to the religious teachings she was raised with, and here she finally understands the truth (or thinks she does, anyway): God hates her, and that's why her life stinks so much. This isn't exactly a warm and fuzzy thing to find out, and it leads Louise to pretty much reject God from here on out.