How we cite our quotes: Citations follow this format: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #7
It seemed to him that he could see himself being hunted by white men at last into the black abyss which had been waiting, trying, for thirty years to drown him and into which now and at last he had actually entered… (14.50)
Near death, Christmas realizes that white society has succeeded in killing him not only spiritually and psychologically, but now also physically.
Quote #8
Perhaps in the moment when I revealed to her not only the depth of my hunger but the fact that never and never would she have any part in the assuaging of it; perhaps at that moment I became her seducer and her murderer, author and instrument of her shame and death. After all, there must be some things for which God cannot be accused by man and held responsible. There must be. (20.17)
For the first time in his life, Hightower admits to causing his wife's adultery and ultimately her death.
Quote #9
He seems to watch himself, alert, patient, skillful, playing his cards well, making it appear that he was being driven, uncomplaining, into that which he did not even then admit had been his desire since before he entered the seminar. (21.34)
Hightower acknowledges his own fakeness and hypocrisy. He pretended to be compelled toward Jefferson by fate but, in reality, it was his secret desire to live in the town where his grandfather was murdered.