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White Teeth History and the Past Quotes

How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)

Quote #10

It escalates in moments, and they make a mockery of that idea, a neutral place; instead they cover the room with history— past, present, and future history (for there is such a thing)— they take what was blank and smear it with the stinking […] of the past like excitable, excremental children. They cover this neutral room in themselves. Every gripe, the earliest memories, every debated principle, every contested belief. (17.221)

The Past = 1,000,000, Neutrality = 0. The past scores pretty much all the points in this novel.