How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #4
"It's not true."
"It soon will be." Lakin sat down behind his desk and leaned forward on it, hands clasped together. "And I tell you frankly that without something interesting, something new, the grant is in trouble." (12.59-60)
Going back to Lakin, he is now willing to bend the truth to create a publication that can secure the grant. In other words, to play his political games, he's cheating at the science game.
Quote #5
Dyson pursed his lips. He was a compact man and his sharp features seemed to pin the problem like a butterfly. "Much less so than the [nuclear] atmospheric tests we and the Soviet Union are now conducting. We calculate Orion would add no more than one percent to the level of radiation that politics—" he pronounced the word carefully—"already sets for us." (18.7)
Here, we have a historical example to support the novel's take on politics. The political games of the Cold War made nuclear energy a tool for politicians, and the results were scary as all get out. Had it been a tool for scientists, one could argue something like the Orion project might have made it off the ground, taking humanity to the moon and beyond quicker.
Quote #6
[Peterson] realized with a start that he was living slightly in the future these days, as an ingrained habit. At Renfrew's he'd been distracted by thoughts of dinner and wine. At the restaurant he had watched Laura's hair and thought how it might look fanned out across a crisp white pillow. Then, immediately after the act, his mind had drifted on to the next day and what he had to do. Christ, a donkey driven by the carrot (22.39)
Peterson is the political character we get to know best. As such, a lot of his personality traits can help us understand the theme of politics. His inability to focus on the current task, to do what needs to be done at that moment, shows us a bit of how the novel views the political mindset.