How we cite our quotes: Citations follow this format: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #7
"You [Eccles] have no seriousness. Don’t you believe in damnation? Don’t you know, when you put that collar on, what you risked?" [said Kruppenbach] (8.144)
Ol’ Kruppenbach knows how to find a sore spot. Eccles already feels like a criminal and fraud in his collar.
Quote #8
She [Lucy Eccles] hates them, all those clinging quaint quavering widows and Young People for Christ – the one good thing if the Russians take over is they’ll make religion go extinct. It should have gone extinct a hundred years ago. Maybe it shouldn’t have. Maybe our weakness needs it […] (10.2)
An atheist and a communist. What an odd combination.
Quote #9
He feels them all, the heads are still around him as tombstones, he feels them all one, all one with the grass, with the hothouse flowers, all, the undertaker’s men, the unseen caretaker who has halted his mower, all gathered into one here to give his unbaptized baby force to leap to heaven. (20.17)
Even the Mystery Science Theater guys would tear up at this one. The beauty of Updike’s image is breathtaking. This is a moment that makes us love Rabbit and see the power of his mind, heaven or no heaven.