The Reivers Technology and Modernization Quotes

How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)

Quote #1

Boon finally found the shape of his dream in the automobile your great-great grandfather bought in 1904, finding it not with humility and passion and joy as Ike found his, but with a kind of outrage that nobody had even told him it existed until he was already past thirty years old. (2.11)

Grandfather buys the automobile; Boon finds his soulmate. Except Boon isn't overjoyed at the opportunities the car affords. Rather, he's angered that he has gone the first thirty years of his life without a vehicle. Gosh, and we thought waiting until we were sixteen to drive was tough.

Quote #2

My grandfather didn't want an automobile at all; he was forced to buy one. A banker, president of the older Bank of Jefferson, the first bank in Yoknapatawpha County, he believed then and right on to his death many years afterward, by which time everybody else even in Yoknapatawpha County had realized that the automobile had come to stay, that the motor vehicle was an insolvent phenomenon like last night's toadstool, and like the fungus, would vanish with tomorrow's sun. But Colonel Sartoris, president of the newer, the mushroom Merchants and Farmer's bank, forced him to buy one. (1.16)

Grandfather bought the car after Colonel Sartoris officially banned automobiles from Jefferson, before they got there. However, Grandfather's purchase of the automobile is a deliberately considered violation of Colonel Sartoris's decree. Take that, Colonel.

Quote #3

So he bought the automobile, and Boon found his soul's lily maid, the virgin's love of his rough and innocent heart. (2.22)

The stars are aligned, and Boon feels the vehicle is his soulmate. 'Nuff said. How much do you love your car?