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Fahrenheit 451 Quotes

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Fahrenheit 451 Quotes

Identity Quotes:

1) "You're one of the few who put up with me. That's why I think it's so strange you're a fireman, it just doesn't seem right for you, somehow."

Montag’s identity crisis begins during his conversations with Clarisse. We immediately sense conflict between his desire to be a dutiful member of society and his inner belief that something is wrong.

2)"I mean," he said, "in the old days, before homes were completely fireproofed–" Suddenly it seemed a much younger voice was speaking for him. He opened his mouth and it was Clarisse McClellan saying, "Didn't firemen prevent fires rather than stoke them up and get them going?"

Montag escapes the guilt of betraying his duty by ascribing his actions to other things: in this case, to another person

3) The numbness will go away, he thought. It'll take time, but I'll do it, or Faber will do it for me. Someone somewhere will give me back the old face and the old hands the way they were. Even the smile, he thought, the old burnt-in smile, that's gone. I'm lost without it.

Montag isn’t just talking about the numbness in his legs; he’s afraid of his new rebellious, fugitive self.

4) "All of those chemical balances and percentages on all of us here in the house are recorded in the master file downstairs. It would be easy for someone to set up a partial combination on the Hound's ‘memory,’ a touch of amino acids, perhaps. That would account for what the animal did just now. Reacted toward me."

This is an interesting passage as it raises the question: how do we define identity and being? If it’s all just chemical in the end, what is the difference between a Mechanical Hound and a real one? What’s to stop a piece of technology from experiencing "human" emotions?

5) He waded in and stripped in darkness to the skin, splashed his body, arms, legs, and head with raw

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