How we cite our quotes: Citations follow this format: (Section.Paragraph)
Quote #7
Nicholson flicked his cigarette ash off to one side. "I take it you have no emotions?" he said.
Teddy reflected before answering. "If I do, I don't remember when I ever used them," he said. "I don't see what they're good for." (4.57-8)
Again, Teddy's earlier behavior is finally explained in his dialogue with Nicholson. Now we understand why he acted toward his parents with such detachment.
Quote #8
"But the point is you feel that in your last incarnation you more or less fell from Grace before final Illumination. Is that right, or am I –"
"That's right," Teddy said. "I met a lady, and I sort of stopped meditating." He took his arms down from the armrests, and tucked his hands, as if to keep them warm, under his thighs. "I would have had to take another body and come back to earth again anyway-I mean I wasn't so spiritually advanced that I could have died, if I hadn't met that lady, and then gone straight to Brahma and never again have to come back to earth. But I wouldn't have had to get incarnated in an American body if I hadn't met that lady." (4.72-3)
Consider Teddy's behavior toward women in this story – his mother, the blonde he passes in the hall, and Ensign Matthewson – in light of this comment to Nicholson. We now see why he's so keen on avoiding women.