How we cite our quotes: In consultation with my editor, we decided (against standard practice) to go with page numbers—since The Sunset Limited is one long act and it would be unwieldy and impractical to number all the lines.
Quote #1
WHITE: People stopped valuing [cultural things]. I stopped valuing them. To a certain extent. I'm not sure I could tell you why. That world is largely gone. Soon it will be wholly gone.
BLACK: I aint sure I'm followin you, Professor.
WHITE: There's nothing to follow. It's all right. The things that I loved were very frail. Very fragile. I didnt know that. I thought they were indestructible. They werent. (25)
How do cultural things actually die? White seems to think that they lose their meaning when life gets too horrible. But does a play about how life is really horrible, like King Lear, lose it's meaning when life gets excessively terrible? Or does it help make the terror comprehensible by showing how bad things really are or can be?
Quote #2
WHITE: […] I've been asked didnt I think it odd that I should be present to witness the death of everything and I do think it's odd but that doesnt mean it's not so. (26)
White thinks that the whole world is at risk of obliterating itself—it's not just culture that has been destroyed. His decision to kill himself seems like a way of preemptively ending the world: If he's dead, it's like the world has stopped existing, too (as far as he's concerned).
Quote #3
BLACK: […] You got these elegant world-class reasons for takin the Limited and these other dudes all they got is maybe they just dont feel good. In fact, it might could be that you ain't even all that unhappy. (117)
White's reasons seem more intellectual than emotional—it's like he thinks despair instead of feels it. In other words, Black seems to think White might have worked himself into a state of despair, despite his own anti-feelings tendencies.