How we cite our quotes: (line number)
Quote #4
I remember still that she did all things dourly: sleeping, eating, working, praying. She dropped dead on the stairs to her apartment, my apartment then, too, on the afternoon of my high school graduation. A terribly middle-European joke, if you ask me. (117)
The "joke" here is that Jerry's aunt died on the same day that he graduated from high school. Talk about great timing. Why this is a middle-European joke is unclear—or for that matter why it's a joke at all. Presumably it's funny because it's a coincidence with no real meaning. Jerry's sense of humor isn't very pleasant (he seems to have gotten it from Albee).
Quote #5
PETER: (Enthusiastic): Oh, yes; the zoo.
Why does Peter care about the zoo? What's he all enthusiastic about anyway? It's not clear why he should care. Maybe it's not even clear to Peter. Sometimes you get excited about things, or obsessed by things, without really knowing why. It's like watching the Kardashians on television, or getting a song stuck in your head.
Quote #6
Don't you see? A person has to have some way of dealing with SOMETHING. If not with people…if not with people…SOMETHING. With a bed, with a cockroach, with a mirror…not, that's too hard, that's one of the last steps. With a cockroach, with a a...with a…with a carpet, a roll of toilet paper…no, not that, either…(163)
People are isolated, alone, radically alienated from the world, from each other, and even from themselves. Jerry understands that, and decides that a good solution would be to shack up with a cockroach. What can we say? To each his own…