How we cite our quotes: (Part.Paragraph)
Quote #4
It was at the theatre and at Carnegie Hall that Paul really lived; the rest was but a sleep and a forgetting. This was Paul's fairy tale, and it had for him all the allurement of a secret love. (1.29)
This passage suggests that all the lying and hiding Paul is doing really is to cover his involvement in the art world, but it seems like there really has to be something more going on.
Quote #5
Several of Paul's teachers had a theory that his imagination had been perverted by garish fiction, but the truth was that he scarcely ever read at all. The books at home were not such as would either tempt or corrupt a youthful mind, and […] he got what he wanted much more quickly from music; any sort of music, from an orchestra to a barrel organ. (1.32)
So the way people think about violent video games and hip-hop music today? They (probably the exact same people) used to say the same-but-different things about novels: corruptors of the youth, destroyers of the social fabric. And now you can actually major in them!
Quote #6
He had no desire to become an actor, any more than he had to become a musician. He felt no necessity to do any of these things; what he wanted was to see, to be in the atmosphere, float on the wave of it, to be carried out, blue league after blue league, away from everything. (1.32)
Maybe if Paul had any real artistic leanings, his life would have ended a little more happily—he'd have had something to work for. It's a little surprising that, surrounded by all these creative and artistic people, he essentially just said, "Yo, all I want to do is listen to music and watch movies when I grow up." So do we all, Paul.