How we cite our quotes: (Part.Chapter.Paragraph.)
Quote #4
You cannot control what you love—you watch it driving recklessly towards the broken bridge, the torn-up track, the horror of seventy years ahead. (1.3.69)
As every parent knows, you can't love your children without also fearing for them. This is a truth learned the hard way by Mr. and Mrs. Fellows, the mother who reads to her three children, and the priest himself. He has a daughter whose life is beyond his power to influence. It tears him up inside, like a fork in a garbage disposal.
Quote #5
[…] the word "life" was taboo: it reminded you of death. (1.3.101)
What is Greene up to with the extremely terrified character of Mrs. Fellows? Why create this character whose heart beats anxiously at the word "life" because it reminds her of its opposite?
Quote #6
But that was the trouble—he could trust no one. As soon as they got back home one or other of them would certainty begin to boast. (1.4.18)
Here Padre José is hesitant to offer a simple blessing for dead child. His fear of sanction (and possibly death) breeds distrust of others. If trust is necessary for a social order, then you arguably can't build a social order on fear. The lieutenant seems to understand this: he tries several times to appeal to the children of the city so as to get them on his side.