"All barriers of caste vanish when you enter hell."
When explaining Big Appachen's move to Parambil after his brother cheated him out of his inheritance, Thankamma explains that Shamuel and Big Appachen leaned on each other to survive the dangerous conditions despite their significant differences in caste. This quotation sets the stage for the novel's exploration of how shared pain and illness facilitate human connection.
"Good surgeons can do any operation. Great surgeons take care of their own complications."
Doctor V. V. Ravichandran teaches Digby that developing personal relationships with patients is essential for true healing. Taking this lesson to heart, Digby personally monitors a patient after a surgery to remove her goiter and reacts swiftly when she experiences a life-threatening complication. In this quotation, Ravi praises Digby for accepting responsibility for his patients. This quotation foreshadows Digby's future vocation caring for the patients of Saint Bridget's. Though Digby's surgical skills are significantly reduced by his injuries, his care for his patients is more important.
"These two have died to their loved ones and to society, and that wound is greater than the collapsing nose, the hideous face, or the loss of fingers. Leprosy deadens the nerves and is therefore painless; the real wound of leprosy, and the only pain they feel, is that of exile."
After years of practicing medicine for a diverse community of patients and responding to their emotional needs, Rune chooses to open a community that serves lepers, the most rejected and isolated population in Kerala. In this quotation, Rune compares the physically disabling consequences of leprosy to the emotionally devastating impacts of exclusion from society. Opening Saint Bridget's is the pinnacle of Rune's healing philosophy; though he never cures leprosy or mitigates physical pain, providing community and purpose to those on the fringes of society.
Hands that are missing fingers, hands curled into claws, and hands that are not hands but clubs of flesh ease out the ropes so as to inter the mortal remains of the saint who dedicated his life to making theirs better. The laments of the flock tear at the firmament and break the hearts of the onlookers who, for the first time, can see past the grotesque disfigured faces and recognize themselves.
This quotation uses the motif of hands to highlight Rune's impact on the Saint Bridget's community and the continued disregard of their humanity. By describing the appearance of the lepers' injuries in striking detail, the text forces the reader to imagine the experience of contracting leprosy and the trauma of being exiled for it. Using biblical language, such as "the flock" and "the firmament," the quotation highlights the lepers' inherent dignity and critiques the other mourners who could not recognize their humanity until they expressed their grief.
"You'll be the very first in our family to get a degree! It's as if we're all going with you on this train."
When Philipose boards the train to Madras, heading for college, Uplift Master highlights the family's collective hopes that Philipose's education will benefit them all. Though Uplift Master attempts to convey pride and hope, he inadvertently puts significant pressure on Philipose to succeed, which heightens the shame Philipose experiences when he drops out of college. This quotation is reminiscent of Digby's mother, who assured her son that his education was the only thing she had to live for. This quotation underscores the contradiction inherent in family structures, that a collective provides both necessary support and debilitating pressure.
"All I wanted...was your support so I could do my work. But somehow you always seem to think you're giving it to me even when you're taking it away."
After Philipose destroys Elsie's sculpture, trying to free the woman inside and Elsie herself, Elsie reveals the core of their incompatibility. In this quotation, she expresses the depth of Philipose's inability to understand her. Elsie's identity and life's purpose are inextricably linked to her art, and when Philipose sabotages her work or creates tension in their marriage, he not only hinders her ability to create art, but crushes her spirit. When Elsie speaks this admonition, Philipose is too drug-addled to understand her, and even sober, he focuses on trying to please her or predicting her feelings that he stifles her creativity.
"The 'kind' slave owners in India, or anywhere, were always the ones who had the greatest difficulty seeing the injustice of slavery. Their kindness, their generosity compared to cruel slave owners, made the blind to the unfairness of a system of slavery that they created, they maintained, and that favored them."
After Shamuel's death, Philipose gives Joppan what he believes to be a tremendously generous offer: to assume Shamuel's position for a large salary and a piece of property. Philipose is taken aback when Joppan, offended, rebukes him, explaining that Philipose's generosity is patronizing. As Joppan explains, being generous and kind while upholding exploitative systems is dangerous and hypocritical. Though the Parambil family are welcoming and loyal to their friends, they do not, in Joppan's opinion, give sufficient reparations to the families they historically exploited. This quotation speaks to a larger conversation about the difference between equity and equality.
"We don't have children to fulfill our dreams. Children allow us to let go of the dreams we were never meant to fulfill."
As he boards the train to Madras, Philipose reflects on his relationship with Mariamma. Though he felt disappointment and resentment when Mariamma was born, as she was not a reincarnation of Ninan, Philipose thoughtfully regards raising Mariamma as a redeeming privilege. He recognizes through his paternal relationship with Mariamma that his desires to be a professional writer and be married to Elsie were not his fate. This quotation gains an additional layer of meaning when Mariamma realizes Philipose is not her biological father; his commitment to her, at the expense of his own dreams, is selfless and pure.
"Every family has secrets, but not all secrets are meant to deceive. What defines a family is not blood, molay, but the secrets they share."
Broker Aniyan is an intermediary between the different Saint Thomas Christian families in Kerala, and he maintains an encyclopedic knowledge of their histories and secrets. When Mariamma consults with Broker Aniyan to uncover examples of people who died from the Condition, he explains that families are more complex than shared ancestry; in his view, families are defined by secrets. This cryptic answer alludes to the fact that Philipose is not Mariamma's biological father, but she is still an essential part of the Parambil family.
The water she first stepped into minutes ago is long gone and yet it is here, past and present and future inexorably coupled, like time made incarnate. This is the covenant of water: that they're all linked inescapably by their acts of commission and omission, and no one stands alone.
When Mariamma realizes Elsie is still alive and has been living at Saint Bridget's for decades, she races to the canal to collect herself. In this quotation, she contemplates the slow-moving water, noting how she stands in the same river that Elsie used to escape, which is connected to all the drownings in her family. She understands that everything and everyone that came before her led up to the present moment; she believes every human being in her life is connected, just as all water is connected. This mystical realization provides Elsie with the strength and assurance she needs to confront her past.
