How we cite our quotes: (Chapter, Paragraph)
Quote #7
She waves this away. "If they can snuff out that part of you that's good, the part of you that won't kill, then they win, don't you see? If they can do it to you, they can do it to anyone. And they win. They win!" (24.59)
If Prentisstown manages to take away his right to be innocent, then they have everything, so Todd needs to protect himself against their threats and bullying and stand up for what he knows is right. It's all he has to call his own.
Quote #8
The knife is alive.
As long as I hold it, as long as I use it, the knife lives, lives in order to take life, but it has to be commanded, it has to have me to tell it to kill, and it wants to, it wants to plunge and thrust and cut and stab and gouge, but I have to want it as well, my will has to join with its will.
I'm the one who allows it and I'm the one responsible. (31.20-22)
Todd has finally realized that he's the knife-master, that the knife can't do a thing unless he picks it up and makes it. The way he sees it, that knife was made to do destructive things, but it can't actually do so unless he "tells" it to. He has to make that choice and will the knife to bring death.
Quote #9
"But if you and Cillian were innocent—" I start.
"We weren't innocent," Ben says strongly, and suddenly his Noise tastes bitter. He sighs. "We weren't."
"What do you mean?" I ask, raising my head. The sickness in my stomach ain't leaving. "What do you mean you weren't innocent?"
"You let it happen," Viola says. "You didn't die with the other men who were protecting the women." (36.113-116)
Sometimes you're in the wrong because you do the wrong thing, but sometimes you're in the wrong because you don't do the right thing. Ben is explaining that he's at fault for not defending the innocent in Prentisstown. Sure, he didn't take a gun into the street and kill them, but protecting himself while the innocent suffered was a choice—and it wasn't the right one.