How we cite our quotes: (Act.Paragraph)
Quote #7
Why are there stars when there are no people? O God, why don't you just extinguish them? (3.4)
Alquist seems to think the stars were put there for people, and should just be put out if people aren't there. This seems like a bit of hubris. Does God care for people more than anything in the universe? The play seems to think He cares about robots just as much.
Quote #8
SECOND ROBOT: We've become being with souls.
FOURTH ROBOT: Something is struggling within us. There are moments when something gets into us. Thoughts come to us that are not our own. (3.58-59)
This is the play's fullest discussion of what it means to have a soul, and it's not exactly super-clear. To have a soul, it seems, is to have something speaking in you from outside. Is that something God? A conscience? A glitch in the program? Usually you think of the soul as the self, but here it's presented as something outside the self, a kind of ghost that's snuck into the computer.
Quote #9
They're so close to us, like they're surrounding us or something. They want to tunnel through to us. Oh, why can't I hear those voices that I loved? (3.76)
Alquist is soliloquizing—again. Here he's speaking to all the dead humans, and wondering why he can't hear them speaking to him from the afterlife. We know why he can't hear them speaking to him from the afterlife. It's because he isn't listening and he won't shut up.