How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #1
I'm sure you have often noticed how ignorant people beyond thirty or forty are. I don't mean forgetful. That's specious and easy, too easy to say Oh papa (or grandpa) oh mama (or grandma), they're just old; they have forgotten. Because there are some things, some of the hard facts of life, that you dont forget, no matter how old you are. (1.5)
Lucius provides this insight as an adult looking back on how, as a child, he probably viewed adults as forgetful. But he realizes now that adult ignorance is deceptive. In the years that have passed between his adventure and his telling the tale, he has learned that some things are just too great to be forgotten.
Quote #2
He [Boon] already had a certain way…with horses and mules; your great-great grandfather always said, not so much because of his size as because of his innocence since the only other domestic animal that big and that uninformed was a horse. (2.13)
The childish Boon exudes a certain innocence, which perhaps suggests that he has just as much growing up to do as the story's narrator, Lucius.
Quote #3
When grown people speak of the innocence of children, they don't really know what they mean. Pressed, they will go a step further and say, Well, ignorance then. The child is neither. There is no crime which a boy of eleven had not envisaged long ago. His only innocence is, he may not yet be old enough to desire the fruits of it, which is not innocence but appetite; his ignorance is, he does not know how to commit it, which is not ignorance but size. (3.10)
Classic Faulkner, leading us in circles and circles. And classic Lucius, understanding now as an adult how adults viewed him as a child. There's a logic here: adults think kids are innocent and ignorant. But kids are actually quite the opposite (as we well know).