How we cite our quotes: (Part.Chapter.Paragraph.)
Quote #1
"Why, I could guarantee to fetch this man in, inside a month if …"
"If what?"
"If I had the power."
"It's easy to talk," the chief said. What would you do?"
"This is a small state. Mountains on the north, the sea on the south. I'd beat it as you beat a street, house by house." (1.2.36-40)
As an officer of the law, the lieutenant obviously has power over others, but he wants more. Power doesn't come to the passive—he has to reach for it. He's not a cartoonish power-hungry Big Bad Wolf, though. He has a clear if unrealistic purpose for that power: destroy the church. For him power is a means, not an end.
Quote #2
He shivered: he knew that he was a buffoon. An old man who married was grotesque enough, but an old priest. […] That was what made him worthy of damnation—the power he still had of turning the wafer into the flesh and blood of God. (1.2.92)
With great power comes great responsibility. Does that mean that those with power who neglect their responsibility are worse than neglectful people with less power? What would Spiderman say?
Quote #3
He was scared, and yet a curious pride bubbled in his throat because he was being treated as a priest again, with respect. (1.4.18)
Being a priest carries a responsibility to serve, but it's also a position of power. When Padre José renounced the priesthood, he gave up both, but his old ways still carry influence over true believers who still see him as a priest. You know the saying, "Once a priest, always a priest." (Okay, you might not actually know that saying because we just made it up. You heard it here first!)