P.86 --- "You'd be surprised, though-on the whole, things don't change much around here."

• Stage manager talking to audience
• Talking about the changes in Grover's Corners
• Saying that even though time has passed, and even though there have been advances in technology, etc., underneath it all, nothing much has changed.  We think that we have changed a lot, but if we think of the general picture, we don't change much at all.

"Wherever you come near the human race, there's layers and layers of nonsense..."

P.87

• Stage Manager to audience
• Talking about how people are paying geanealogists to look for their ancestors and whether their ancestors came over on the Mayflower, etc.
• We care where we came from because we want to be able to talk about ourselves and how important our ancestors were.  We want to be the center of comversation.  We want to be proud of our ancestry and to know exactly where we came from.

"...New Hampshire boys...had a notion that the Union ought to be kept together, though they'd never seen more than fifty miles of it themselves.  All they knew was the name, friends-the United States of America.  The United States of America.  And they went and died about it."

P. 87

• Stage Manager to Audience
• Talking about some New Hampshire boys who fought in the Civil War.  They hadn't seen much of America, but they were patriotic and believed that the union should be kept together
• Patriotic, belief in their country, never seen much of it and yet they were willing to die for it.  All they knew was the United States of America, and they knew that it should be kept together.

"There's something way down deep that's eternal about every human being."

P.88

• Stage Manager to Audience
• Talking about death and how we seem to "lose" people in death
• When people die, we act like we have lost them forever.   But by remembering them and remembering all the time we spent with them, they truly live forever and are with us in spirit.  They are eternal in our hearts.

"My wasn't life awful--

and wonderful."

P.93

• Mrs. Soames to Mrs. Gibbs
• Talking about the hardships and joys of life
• Paradox-Live was awful, but yet wonderful
• We have sadness in our life, and we have happiness.  But we need to appreciate every minute that we spend on earth, because we won't live on earth forever.  Every moment is a gift.

"Live people don't understand, do they?"

P. 96

• Emily to Mrs. Gibbs
• Emily talking about how we lose sight of what counts.  We forget that even though the person is dead, they still live in our hearts. People care about whether they have the latest dress styles, or whether their house is big.  But in Grover's Corners, they enjoy the simple pleasures in life. 

"Oh, Mother Gibbs, I never realized before how troubled and how...how in the dark live persons are."

P.97

• Emily to Mother Gibbs
• Emily is just realizing how much we, live persons, don't understand.  We don't understand a lot about life.  We take every second for granted, and we don't appreciate it.  Like that man said, "We cannot keep time, we can only mark its passing."

"At least, choose an unimportant day.  Choose the least important day in your life.  It will be important enough."

P.100

• Mrs. Gibbs to Emily
• Emily wants to go back and live another day in her life again.  She is saying that she wants to go and re-live a happy day.  But Mrs. Gibbs is saying to choose an unimportant day.  Because every day is a gift.

"Goodby to clocks ticking...and Mama's sunflowers.  And food and coffee.  And new-ironed dresses and hot baths...and sleeping and waking up.  Oh, earth, you're too wonderful for anybody to realize you."

P.108

• Emily to the Earth
• Emily has just re-lived part of her twelfth birthday.  She realized that life goes by fast and that no one really stops to enjoy the simple pleasures.  Sleeping, waking up, those are all routine, simple, normal things to do, and things that we take for granted, but that dead persons might miss doing.

Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it?--every, every minute?

P.108

• Emily to Stage Manager
• Emily is asking whether anyone ever stopped and thought about the normal, routine things that we all do and realize that each one is special.  If we realize that every day, every thing is a blessing and a gift.