How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #7
Stanley couldn't see his feet, which made it difficult to walk through the tangled patches of weeds and vines. He concentrated on one step at a time, carefully raising and setting down each foot. He thought only about each step, and not the impossible task that lay before him.
Higher and higher he climbed. His strength came from somewhere deep inside himself and also seemed to come from the outside as well. After focusing on Big Thumb for so long, it was as if the rock had absorbed his energy and now acted like a kind of giant magnet pulling him toward it. (38.3-4)
Almost like some kind of spiritual guide, Big Thumb and the land around it help Stanley do what he has to do and make it up the mountain. Thanks, Big Thumb. We owe you one.
Quote #8
Stanley bit into an onion. It didn't burn his eyes or nose, and, in fact, he no longer noticed a particularly strong taste.
He remembered when he had first carried Zero up the hill, how the air had smelled bitter. It was the smell of thousands of onions, growing and rotting and sprouting.
Now he didn't smell a thing. (42.10-12)
When he first encountered the onion field, all Stanley noticed was the bad smell and the strong taste. Living on the onions, though, has allowed him to see beyond the surface to the life-giving properties, the "growing and rotting and sprouting" that's going on all the time in nature. We're not planning on moving into an onion field anytime soon, but it does make us appreciate what's around us.
Quote #9
His brain took him back to a time when he was very little, all bundled up in a snowsuit. He and his mother were walking, hand in hand, mitten in mitten, when they both slipped on some ice and fell and rolled down a snow-covered hillside. They ended up at the bottom of the hill. He remembered he almost cried, but instead he laughed. His mother laughed, too.
He could feel the same light-headed feeling he felt then, dizzy from rolling down the hill. He felt the sharp coldness of the snow against his ear. He could see flecks of snow on his mother's bright and cheery face. (46.21-22)
When he's at his ultimate low and thinks he's going to die, Stanley turns to memories of his mother. But check it out: the memory he chooses is one in which the natural world plays a strong part. So much of the intensity of the memory actually comes from the physical sensations of the natural world.