How we cite our quotes: (Section.Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #7
The day I begged bread from the city officials was the day that showed me I was not alone in my loneliness, society had cast millions of others with me. (2.17.3)
You know what they say: misery loves company, and there’s nothing like seeing that millions of other people are sad to make you feel less alone.
Quote #8
My life as a Negro in America had led me to feel—though my helplessness had made me try to hide it from myself—that the problem of human unity was more important than bread, more important than physical living itself; for I felt that without a common bond uniting men, without a continuous current of shared thought and feeling circulating through the social system, like blood coursing through the body, there could be no living worthy of being called human. (2.18.30)
What is humanity, for Richard? Can you be human and not be connected to your fellow man? Does it count if we have 538 Facebook friends?
Quote #9
I had lived so utterly isolated a life that the club filled for me a need that could not be imagined by the white members who were becoming disgusted with it, whose normal living had given them what I was so desperately trying to get. (2.18.86)
Richard is like a starving man surrounded by a bunch of guys who have just had lunch. He’s never had friendship, and now he wants as much of it as he can get.