How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #7
"This then is the world that Percival sees no longer." (5b.8)
This quote sums up the sense of shock that the characters experience at confronting a world that no longer includes their friend.
Quote #8
"You are well out of it," I said, while the doves descended over the roofs and my son was born, as if it were a fact. [...] And I go on to say (my eyes fill with tears and then are dry), "But this is better than one had dared to hope." (5b.9)
Here, Bernard has ambivalence toward life and death. This characterizes the attitude of the rest of the novel; life is both something that he claims Percival is "well out of" and "better than one had dared to hope." The novel's characters are torn between love and hate, nature and industry, and other sets of opposites. So, we guess it's natural that they would be similarly indecisive when it comes to the big binary—life and death—that is kind of at the heart of human existence.