Light in August Memory and the Past Quotes

How we cite our quotes: Citations follow this format: (Chapter.Paragraph)

Quote #7

But it is there: the descendants of both in their relationship to one another ghosts, with between them the phantom of the old spilled blood and the old horror and anger and fear. (2.37)

Miss Burden and Christmas are bonded by their relationship to their own personal ghosts. It's what unites them, but inevitably what divides them as well.

Quote #8

A man will talk about how he'd like to escape from living folks. But it's the dead folks that do him the damage. It's the dead ones that lay quiet in one place and don't try to hold him, that he can't escape from. (3.23)

Byron Bunch delivers this piece of wisdom, revealing himself to be something of a philosopher, and quite aware of the dangers of obsessing over the past.

Quote #9

That son grew to manhood among phantoms, and side by side with a ghost. The phantoms were his father, his grandfather, and an old n***o woman. (20.17)

These are all of the people who haunt Hightower through life, and they're all symbols of the Old South and its extremely racist past.