How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #4
"We differ, it may be too profoundly," said Louis, "for explanation. But let us attempt it. I smoothed my hair when I came in, hoping to look like the rest of you. But I cannot, for I am not single and entire as you are. I have lived a thousand lives already." (4b.41)
This quote from Louis implies that he finds communication difficult, particularly when talking to someone different from himself, but he thinks it is important to make the effort anyhow.
Quote #5
'"Like" and "like" and "like"—but what is the thing that lies beneath the semblance of the thing? Now that lightning has gashed the tree and the flowering branch has fallen and Percival, by his death, has made me this gift, let me see the thing. (5b.26)
Here, Rhoda also puts her finger on a central question for the novel: What is the "thing" that lies beneath language and how do we get to it? Apparently Percival's death has somehow brought her into contact with the mystery beneath language, which she perceives as a gift. However, given what we know about Rhoda's eventual end (in suicide), we wonder how happy her access to this knowledge makes her.
Quote #6
"It is curious how, at every crisis, some phrase which does not fit insists upon coming to the rescue—the penalty of living in an old civilization with a notebook. This drop falling has nothing to do with losing my youth. This drop falling is time tapering to a point. Time, which is a sunny pasture covered with a dancing light, time, which is widespread as a field at midday, becomes pendant. Time tapers to a point. As a drop falls from a glass heavy with some sediment, time falls. These are the true cycles, these are the true events. Then as if all the luminosity of the atmosphere were withdrawn I see to the bare bottom. I see what habit covers." (7b.2)
Bernard, like Rhoda earlier, asserts that he sometimes gains access to some kind of core truths, a "bare bottom" that is typically obscured by "habit."