How we cite our quotes: Citations follow this format: (Paragraph). We used H.T. Willetts's translation.
Quote #4
Writing letters home was like throwing stones into a bottomless pool. They sank without a trace. (224)
The imagery here is quite powerful, especially the idea that the past itself is some sort of "bottomless pool." Shukhov will really never be able to go home in a way, or to fully regain his past. In a way the prisoners themselves are like the stones sinking here. They too disappear without a trace.
Quote #5
Since he'd been in the camps Shukhov had thought many a time of the food they used to eat in the village [...] But he knew better now that he'd been inside. (258)
Shukhov's considerable self-discipline also extends to his thoughts on the past. He seems to have schooled himself, or at least attempts to school himself, to not dwell on the past.
Quote #6
Shukhov stared into the flames and his seven years in the north came back to him. Three years hauling logs for crates and rail ties to the log slide. (390)
Though Shukhov has been in the gulag system for eight years, we learn that he's only been in this particular camp for one year. Shukhov is very well-adjusted though, so either he is a fast learner or all the gulag camps are pretty similar. However, as this scene reveals, there were some definite differences between the camps and it sounds like Shukhov's life was much harder there.