How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #4
Grandma, all the same, burned a candle on the anniversary of Mr. Lausch's death, threw a lump of dough on the coals when she was baking, as a kind of offering, had incantations over baby teeth and stunts against the evil eye. It was kitchen religion and had nothing to do with the giant God of the Creation who turned back the waters and exploded Gomorrah, but it was on the side of religion at that. (1.29)
Augie associates Grandma Lausch's practices with religion because of their ritualistic nature. They're not just habits or personal quirks, but repeated behaviors that have become little meaningful traditions.
Quote #5
"Everyone has bitterness in his chosen thing. Bitterness in his chosen thing. That's what Christ as for, that even God had to have bitterness if he was really going to be man's God, a god who was human." (12.148)
This is Kayo, who lives between Augie and Mimi in the student house, waxing poetic on Mimi's choice to have an abortion. Neither Augie nor Mimi hold him in high regard. This tangent into Christian symbolism might have been interesting to Augie in other circumstances, but when his mind is on Mimi and her very personal and private affairs, he's not exactly in the mood to listen.
Quote #6
You do all you can to humanize and familiarize the world, and suddenly it becomes more strange than ever. The living are not what they were, the dead die again and again, and at last for good. (13.4)
This task of humanizing and familiarizing a strange world may be the closest thing Augie has to a religious impulse. He wants control over his life, so he can make it into something special. This life is all he expects. When he's dead, he'll be dead, and that will be it.