"It was a perfect title, in that it crystallized the article's niggling mindlessness, its funereal parade of yawn-enforcing facts, the pseudo-light it threw upon non-problems."
The quote appears at the beginning of the novel, after Jim discussed his paper with Professor Welch. The quote reveals how Jim feels about the academic environment and how he sees education in general. Jim has no respect for the work he does or for the work others do, considering it as being worthless and without any practical value. The papers he wrote helped no body and the only reason he wrote them was to keep his job as a lecturer. Jim is aware of this and he is sincere when he thinks about the paper he writes and about the lectures he holds at the college.
"The sight of her seemed an irresistible attack on his own habits, standards, and ambitions: something designed to put him in his place for good."
When Jim sees Christine for the first time, he becomes interested in her because she represents everything he can’t have. Christine comes from a different background and different social circle and she represents the king of people Jim was never able to get along with. Despite knowing this, Jim begins to pursue her, hoping that something will spark between them. But even though he pursues her, he never forgets that she is way above him and he could never have her in the way Bertrand has her.
"Dixon was interested by this conventional absence of conventional sensitivity; for almost the first time in his life a woman was behaving in a way alleged to be typical of women."
What attracted Jim to Christine was the fact that she was in many aspects like him. In social contexts, she put on a mask and pretended to be someone she was not. In private however, she let herself go and indulged in certain behaviors that were considered as being not suitable for a young woman. These flaws proved to Jim that she was a human being as well, someone who was not untouchable and different from the rest of the world.
