We have changed our privacy policy. In addition, we use cookies on our website for various purposes. By continuing on our website, you consent to our use of cookies. You can learn about our practices by reading our privacy policy.

The Zoo Story Rules and Order Quotes

How we cite our quotes: (line number)

Quote #1

JERRY: And the zoo is around Sixty-fifth Street; so I've been walking north.
PETER: (Anxious to get back to his reading) Yes; it would seem so.
JERRY: Good old north. (9-11)

The play starts out with Jerry figuring out what direction he's going. "Good old north." Knowing where north is can be comforting; it helps you feel like you know where you are and you know where you're going. Even if it doesn't. When's the last time you used a compass?

Quote #2

We…uh…we publish textbooks. (76)

Textbooks are full of rules and order. Peter works for a company that depends on everything being in its place and telling people where to bubble in the answers. He's a bubble-in-the-answers kind of guy.

Quote #3

What were you trying to do? Make sense out of things? Bring order? The old pigeonhole bit? (108)

Jerry is sneering at Peter for trying to put Jerry in a box. But Jerry cannot be put in a box. He breaks out of cages; he leaps across boundary lines. He is like Houdini the great escape artist, if Houdini somehow got trapped in a play about a bench.