How we cite our quotes: (Part.Section.Paragraph)
Quote #7
Who am I to make positive conclusions about morality, and codes to serve all of humanity?
Why—I am the son of a doctor, a man who chose to serve mankind, and who was positive that this was right. And he tried to make me serve in the same way, because it was the only rightness he was sure of. And for this I have hated him all my life . . . I see now, Dad, I see! (3.16-54-55)
Yep, this theme is compassion and forgiveness. Here's some forgiveness for you: Hip finds worth in what his cold father did. The forgiveness is important enough that it drives Hip to create the ethos that saves the day at the end of the novel. We're sure Pops would be proud.
Quote #8
You want to be wanted. You want to be needed. So do I. [...]
So nobody wants you and you are a monster.
Nobody wanted me when I was a monster.
But Gerry, there is another kind of code for you [...]
Help humanity, Gerry [...]
I was a monster and I found this ethos. You are a monster. It's up to you. (3.17.6-15)
Hip forges a bond with Gerry by pointing out their similarities to him, which is quite the empathic thing to do. Hip then leaves the choice up to Gerry, compassionately respecting the gestalt head's autonomy that must come into play for the ethos to truly work.
Quote #9
"God," said Gerry into his hands. "What I've done . . . the things I could have. . . ."
"The things you can do," Hip reminded him gently. "You've paid quite a price for the things you've done."
Gerry looked around at the huge glass room and everything in it that was massive, expensive, rich. "I have?"
Hip said, from the scarred depths of memory, "People all around you, you by yourself." He made a wry smile. "Does a superman have super-hunger, Gerry? Super-loneliness?"
Gerry nodded, slowly. "I did better when I was a kid." He shuddered. "Cold. . . . "
Hip did not know what kind of cold he meant, and did not ask. (3.19.9-14)
It's a bird, it's a plane, it's a superman gestalt! Hip, a homo sapiens, reaches into his own scarred past of being brilliant but monstrous to find what it must be like for a homo gestalt to be alone: super-loneliness. That's how Hip finds the compassion to reassure Gerry about possibilities for his future. Finally, he respects Gerry's pain enough to let him feel it in privacy by not asking what he meant by the word cold. Cold soup? Or a cold soul?