June 12, 1954—The drive from Salina to Morgen was three hours, and for much of it, Emmett hadn’t said a word. For the first sixty miles or so, Warden Williams had made an effort at friendly conversation. He had told a few stories about his childhood back East and asked a few questions about Emmett’s on the farm. But this was the last they’d be together, and Emmett didn’t see much sense in going into all of that now.
In the opening lines of the novel, Emmett is being driven back from Salina, a juvenile detention center, suggesting that he has had a troubled past. The fact that he drives home indicates that the trouble is behind him, as Emmett also seems eager to confirm. This quote also does much of scene-setting and plot orientation work, as the setting—Morgen, Nebraska in 1954—is stated plainly and directly.
Because a farmer with a mortgage was like a man walking on the railing of a bridge with his arms outstretched and his eyes closed. It was a way of life in which the difference between abundance and ruin could be measured by a few inches of rain or a few nights of frost.
This quote characterizes the type of life that Charles Watson, recently deceased, has led. The precarious nature of his farm and misfortunes has given Emmett an increased sense of maturity and responsibility, as Emmett was conscious from a young age of his father’s failing finances.
But I had taken the time to do my arithmetic with care, and I was pretty confident that Ackerly’s debt to me would be satisfied with one solid whack on the crown. To hit him a second time would just put me in his debt. So I returned the skillet to the stovetop and slipped out the kitchen door, thinking: One down, two to go.
Duchess, after hitting Ackerly in the head with a cast-iron skillet, feels that he has successfully settled one of his three outstanding debts. Duchess’s sense of justice and vengeance solidifies in this moment, as he views violence as an acceptance and appropriate method of settling debts.
Like the warden said: The ugly side of chance.
Referring to the incident that led to Emmett accidentally murdering Jimmy Snyder, this quote characterizes the circumstances that put Emmett in Salina. While not an inherently violent person, his rash and hasty decision to strike Jimmy led to a year of incarceration at Salina. It also speaks to the misfortune that Charles Watson faced for much of his life, struggling against the elements on his farm.
But when it came to rules, Billy wasn’t simply an abider. He was a stickler. He made his bed and brushed his teeth without needing to be asked. He insisted that he be at school fifteen minutes before the first bell, and he always raised his hand in class before speaking.
Emmett reflects on his younger brother Billy’s personality. Billy is an unusually mature and precocious 8-year-old, and Emmett worries about how he will adjust to their journey, which calls for some rule-breaking. Billy’s attention to detail and diligence, however, will become an important plot point that later changes their entire futures.
What if God had sent him to the boy? Not the God of Abraham, who would sooner strike down a sinner than call him by name, but the God of Christ. Or even Christ Himself, the One who assured us that no matter how often we have strayed, we can find forgiveness and even redemption by redirecting our steps toward the path of virtue.
Pastor John contemplates the opportunity before him when he comes across Billy alone on the train. He justifies his theft of Billy’s coin collection by thinking it is for Billy’s own good, and then goes on to reassure himself that redemption and forgiveness are possible for everyone under Christianity.
For kindness begins where necessity ends.
Sally, reflecting on her life so far as the caretaker of her father’s household, comes to this conclusion. She defends her own caretaking tendencies—which are criticized by others as overbearing—as a mechanism of kindness, rather than necessity. Sally knows that her gestures may be unneeded, but she performs them out of kindness.
If you take a trait that by all appearances is a merit—a trait that is praised by pastors and poets, a trait that we have come to admire in our friends and hope to foster in our children—and you give it to some poor soul in abundance, it will almost certainly prove an obstacle to their happiness. Just as someone can be too smart for their own good, there are those who are too patient for their own good, or too hardworking.
Emmett, after his talk with Sarah, thinks about the unfortunate hand that Woolly has been dealt in life. Sarah believes that her brother is too kind for his own good, as his behavior, though disruptive, is never intended maliciously. She mourns the unfortunate lot in life that Woolly faces, as the world does not treat those like Woolly very kindly.
He too had watched as the outer limits of his life had narrowed from the world at large, to the island of Manhattan, to that book-lined office in which he awaited with a philosophical resignation the closing of the finger and thumb. And then this... This! A little boy from Nebraska appears at his doorstep with a gentle demeanor and a fantastical tale. A tale not from a leather-bound tome mind you... But from life itself. How easily we forget—we in the business of storytelling—that life was the point all along.
Professor Abacus Abernathe, in his sole chapter, excitedly reflects on the extraordinary circumstances that have led him to where he is, waiting to illegally board a train with Ulysses. Though he has written the book that so inspired Billy, he himself has not traveled or adventured much, and he is grateful to Billy for the realization that the pursuit of life is the point of storytelling.
To hold another man in disdain, his father would say, presumed that you knew so much about his lot, so much about his intentions, about his actions both public and private that you could rank his character against your own without fear of misjudgment.
Emmett judges the two hungover passengers who are reveling in the private train car that he comes across. While Emmett tries not to judge people too hastily, he cannot help but be unimpressed by their spoiled attitudes and extreme privilege. However, the main message of this quote encapsulates an important principle in the novel: that things (and people) are much more than they seem at first glance.
