How we cite our quotes: (Book.Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #7
'Brothers, sisters!' I broadcast, with a mental voice as uncontrollable as its physical counterpart, 'Do not let this happen! Do not permit the endless duality of masses-and-classes, capital-and-labour, them-and-us to come between us! We,' I cried passionately, 'must be a third principle, we must be the force which drives between the horns of the dilemma; for only by being other, by being new, can we fulfil the promise of our birth!' (2.18.8)
Saleem turns the concept of the other on its head by suggesting to the midnight's children that it's a good thing. We guess he's had a lot of practice since everyone in his family is a little foreign.
Quote #8
After my sixteenth birthday, I studied history at my aunt Alia's college; but not even learning could make me feel a part of this country devoid of midnight children, in which my fellow-students took out processions to demand a stricter, more Islamic society-proving that they had contrived to become the antitheses of students everywhere else on earth, by demanding more-rules-not-less. (2.22.13)
Why do you think that Saleem feels even more out of place in Pakistan than he does in India?
Quote #9
This, too, may be seen as an aspect of the detachment which came to afflict us all (except Jamila, who had God and country to keep her going)-a reminder of my family's separateness from both India and Pakistan. In Rawalpindi, my grandmother drank pink Kashmiri tea; in Karachi, her grandson was washed by the waters of a lake he had never seen. (2.23.9)
Salman Rushdie trivia: Rushdie's family is also Kashmiri, so it's not just a convenient plot point, but also autobiographical.