How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #7
"Nirvana is the goal. Non-being, as it were." At ten it seemed to Ursula that perhaps being should be the goal. (20.76)
Ursula's views on life change as she relives her life over and over. As she gets older, she starts to see the circularity of things, so that as she relives life over and over, she becomes a very wise ten-year-old, who even at that tender age starts to yearn for non-being.
Quote #8
What a world of difference there was between dying and nearly dying. One's whole life, in fact. Ursula felt she had no use for the life she had been saved for. (20.339)
Sometimes people change the course of their life after a near-death experience. Ursula, however, is able to change the course of future lives if there isn't anything she can do to remedy things in her current one.
Quote #9
It seemed to Ursula that how you got there was the whole point but there was nothing to be gained from arguing with Sylvie on the days when she was mired in gloom. (21.17)
Sylvie is fatalistic in an almost apathetic way. Her philosophy seems to be life stinks (sometimes), and then you die. And because people die, she doesn't see any reason to live a good life. Maybe that's why she has no qualms about cheating—she's going to die anyway, and no one will be around to remember it.