How we cite our quotes: Citations follow this format: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #7
My tenth birthday came and went away, like all the other nine, uncelebrated. Having never had a normal childhood, I didn't miss birthdays; to me they were simply like other days: to be survived. Strangely, however, on each birthday I somehow got the feeling that I had aged more than a year. Suffering seemed to age more than birthdays. Though I was only ten, black life seemed to have, all along, been teaching me the same lessons of survival, and making the same demands upon me for that survival, as it was doing to grown-ups. Thus, emotionally, I had aged far beyond my ten years. (27.1)
The constant fight for survival makes Mark feel older than his years.
Quote #8
A few months after I witnessed the grisly murder a strange feeling that I should end my own life suddenly came over me. I don't know why I felt that way, though the feeling seemed connected with the witnessing of the murder. All the memories of my childhood suffering came back and multiplied to a lifetime of continuous suffering, and I felt I could take no more.
I was weary of being hungry all the time, weary of being beaten all the time: at school, at home and in the streets. I felt that somehow the whole world was against me. I felt that the courage, the resiliency and the unswerving, fanatical will to survive, to dream of a bright future, to accomplish, to conquer, of early years had deserted me. (28.1-2)
Seeing somebody's life end with no regard to his humanity makes Mark begins to wonder if his own life is worth anything at all. He begins to contemplate suicide.
Quote #9
I often cried when I read these letters, especially those detailing the suffering of children. One day I was reading one such letter to a migrant worker named Phineas, when I was overcome with feelings and started crying. Phineas patted me on the shoulder, consolingly, as we both sat on a makeshift bench of milk crates in his tiny shack.
"Now, now, my boy," he said. "I admit things are bad back there, but not that bad. Look at it another way. If this one child is going to die, as the letter says, I'll still have six others left. I'm working seven days a week," he continued, "and one of these days I'll amass enough money to be able to take care of all their needs. Just you wait and see." (29.99-100).
The suffering is so bad that Phineas can't even see it. He just hopes things will get better, even though there is no reason to assume that they will.