How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #10
I read that it was paper that kept the towers burning. […] Maybe if we lived in a paperless society, which lots of scientists say we'll probably live in one day soon, Dad would still be alive. Maybe I shouldn't start a new volume. (17.139)
Oskar is eerily reliving Grandma's fear that all the papers she kept somehow contributed to her house fire during the Dresden bombing. Oskar even considers not keeping so many papers in the future, because doing so might cause more people to die. This is a kind of magical thinking that people do when things seem impossibly scary.