How we cite our quotes: (Part.Section.Paragraph)
Quote #1
One does not realize that for a six-year-old the path of memory stretches back for just as long a lifetime as it does for anyone, and is as full of detail and incident. Gerry had had trouble enough, loss enough, illness enough, to make a man of anyone. (1.12.2)
We had to read this one a few times to make sense of it. The quote suggests that no matter what age someone is, that person can interpret the details of his or her memory for as long a time as anyone older. That's why Gerry is an old soul: though only six years old, he has reflected on all his troubles as much as an old person might have, which we imagine is a lot.
Quote #2
But someone had called to him this way—someone who "sent" like a child, but who was not a child. And though what he felt now was faint, it was in substance unbearably similar. It was sweet and needful, yes; but it was also the restimulation of a stinging lash and a terror of crushing kicks and obscene shouting, and the greatest loss he had ever known [...] He rose, shaken, and began to walk to the call in a world turned dreamlike. The longer he walked, the more irresistible the call became and the deeper his enchantment [...] To permit himself any more consciousness would have been to kindle such an inferno of conflict that he could not have gone on. (1.24.11-13)
You know how ice cream is irresistible? So are powerful, emotional memories such as this one. Lone's experience of Alicia's heart-rending, telepathic call reminds him of his life-changing experience with Evelyn and the resulting battle with her father. That's one of those memories we'd probably try to block out.
Quote #3
Eight. Eight, plate, state, hate. I ate from the plate of the state and I hate. I didn't like any of that and I snapped my eyes open. The ceiling was still gray. It was all right. Stern was somewhere behind me with his pipe, and he was all right. I took two deep breaths, three, and then let my eyes close. Eight. Eight years old. Eight, hate. Years, fears. Old, cold. Damn it! I twisted and twitched on the couch, trying to find a way to keep the cold out. I ate from the plate of the—
I grunted and with my mind I took all the eights and all the rhymes and everything they stood for, and made it all black. But it wouldn't stay black. I had to put something there, so I made a great big luminous figure eight and just let it hang there. But it turned on its side and inside the loops it began to shimmer. It was like one of those movie shots through binoculars. I was going to have to look through whether I liked it or not.
Suddenly I quit fighting it and let it wash over me. The binoculars came closer, closer, and then I was there. (2.2.42-44)
Eight, hate, state, wait—what is going on here? This passage, a mix of stream-of-consciousness and internal monologue, takes place when Gerry is on the couch early in his session with Stern. It shows just how much of a battle it is to fight with your memory so that you can relive an experience in detail, as Gerry subsequently does.