How we cite our quotes: ("Story Name," Paragraph)
Quote #7
Perfect, faultless, in ruins, yes, but perfect, nevertheless. ("Night Meeting," 12)
How can something be both perfect and in ruins? Can the very fact that something is in ruins make it perfect? In other words, is Tomás Gomez enjoying the sadness of these ruins? (That's not a totally crazy idea: in the 19th century, a lot of people really enjoyed touring old ruins. Hey, people still do today.)
Quote #8
How must it have felt, Pikes, the night they seized your films, like entrails yanked from the camera, out of your guts, clutching them in coils and wads to stuff them up a stove to burn away! ("Usher II," 97)
Notice how Stendahl turns Pikes's loss into an almost physical act of violence—the censors pulled the film out of his camera like pulling guts out of his body. Of course, that's basically what Stendahl plans to do to them.
Quote #9
He lay on the stones, melted wax cooling, his face all faces, one eye blue, the other golden, hair that was brown, red, yellow, black, one eyebrow thick, one thin, one hand large, one small. ("The Martian," 210)
The shapeshifting Martian is all things to all people. Bradbury pulls a pretty good trick on us throughout most of "The Martian": he makes us feel sad for the LaFarges by telling the story from Mr. LaFarge's point of view. But look at this ending: it's true that the LaFarges lost their son (again), but the Spauldings lost their daughter again too. Everyone in the crowd lost something—including the Martian. (You know, his life.) Maybe we should feel most sorry for him.