How we cite our quotes: Citations follow this format: (Part.Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #13
Suddenly I found myself on Times Square. I had traveled eight thousand miles around the American continent and I was back on Times Square; and right in the middle of a rush hour, too, seeing with my innocent road-eyes the absolute madness and fantastic hoorair of New York with its millions and millions hustling forever for a buck among themselves, the mad dream - grabbing, taking, giving, sighing, dying, just so they could be buried in those awful cemetery cities beyond Long Island City. The high towers of the land - the other end of the land, the place where Paper America is born. (I.14.9)
The sadness Sal sees when he looks over America seems to have something to do with the inevitability of death. This is where his franticness and worry over time come into the picture. This is the inevitability of the Shrouded Traveler, chasing Sal and every other American to their death.
Quote #14
"What is the meaning of this voyage to New York? What kind of sordid business are you on now? I mean, man, whither goest thou? Whither goest thou, America, in thy shiny car in the night?" (II.3.8)
Carlo begins by asking Sal and Dean a question, but ends up addressing America as a whole. This is an interesting notion: do Sal and Dean represent Americans? Are their struggles, in some way, the struggles of the country? Carlo certainly raises the stakes with his question.
Quote #15
"Furthermore we know America, we’re at home; I can go anywhere in America and get what I want because it’s the same in every corner, I know the people, I know what they do. We give and take and go in the incredibly complicated sweetness zigzagging every side." (II.3.10)
Dean thinks America is "the same in every corner," while Sal is able to recognize the differences as he travels across the country. In a way, Dean’s view is too simplistic, and so are his solutions to the greater problems of time and death.