How we cite our quotes: (Part.Section.Paragraph)
Quote #4
Lone built the device. He did it, not because he was particularly interested in the thing for itself, nor because he wished to understand its principles (which were and would always be beyond him), but only because an old man who had taught him something he could not name was mad with bereavement and needed to work and could not afford a horse. (1.28.36)
Xtreme Compassion. The fact that the anti-gravity generator is the only advanced device in this novel shows that emotions like compassion are more central to the book than technology.
Quote #5
"Are you a good psychotherapist?"
"I think so," he said. "Whom did you kill?"
The question caught me absolutely off guard. "Miss Kew," I said. Then I started to cuss and swear. "I didn't mean to tell you that."
"Don't worry about it," he said. "What did you do it for?"
"That's what I came here to find out."
"You must have really hated her."
I started to cry. Fifteen years old and crying like that! (2.9.23-31)
Stern shows the compassion a good psychotherapist must have for a patient to change. Gerry reveals specifics of a murder he committed and Stern doesn't even flinch, let alone condemn him. The psychotherapist shows compassion instead. We're in awe.
Quote #6
But this was no seduction, this close intimacy of meals and walks and long shared silences, with never a touch, never a wooing word. Lovemaking, even the suppressed and silent kind, is a demanding thing, a thirsty and yearning thing. Janie demanded nothing. She only . . . she only waited. If her interest lay in his obscured history she was taking a completely passive attitude, merel placing herself to receive what he might unearth. (3.7.8)
Quick! What's the difference between compassion and love? Well, Janie freely gives her compassion to help heal Hip by showing him patience, whereas, the passage points out, love is a craving that demands certain responses urgently.