How we cite our quotes: Citations follow this format: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #7
"You know what I hate most of all, Will? Not being able to run anymore, like you." (27.14)
Mr. Halloway longs for youth…but what does he think about innocence?
Quote #8
"Changing size doesn't change the brain. If I made you twenty-five tomorrow, Jim, your thoughts would still be boy thoughts, and it'd show! Or if they turned me into a boy of ten this instant, my brain would still be fifty and that boy would act funnier and older and weirder than any boy ever." (40.15)
Charles Halloway understands that boyhood innocence cannot be recovered by mere physical transformation.
Quote #9
Will paused in his desperate push and relaxation, push and relaxation, trying to shape Jim back to life, unafraid of the watchers in the dark, no time for that! Even if there were time, these freaks, he sensed, were breathing the night as if they had not been fed on such rare fine air in years! (53.6)
Will has been through a lot over the last 53 chapters. He watched a man get electrocuted, saw his seventh-grade teacher turn into a little girl, and here in this passage he tries to revive his best friend, who looks like he's dead. Does this mean he's growing up? Is he any less innocent at the end of the novel than at the start?