The Shipping News

The Shipping News

by

Annie Proulx

Nolan Quoyle is a cousin to Guy, Quoyle, and Agnis Hamm. He never left Newfoundland. Local gossip claims that he had sex with his wife’s corpse after she died and that he is just another example of the Quoyles’ lack of common morality. By the time Quoyle and his family try to move back into the house on the point, Nolan has become addled with loneliness or age and dementia (or both). He lives with his white dog in Capsize Cove and ekes out a living by fishing. To try and drive Agnis, Quoyle, and the girls from the house, he leaves knotted strings around them meant to bring hexes and bad luck. Eventually, Quoyle has Nolan committed to a mental health center. Nolan is also the one who reveals Guy’s abuse of Agnis to Quoyle.

Nolan Quoyle Quotes in The Shipping News

The The Shipping News quotes below are all either spoken by Nolan Quoyle or refer to Nolan Quoyle. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Love and Family Theme Icon
).
Chapter 15: The Upholstery Shop Quotes

“Yes of course I remember. […] There was another white dog adventure couple weeks ago. You know that little white stone I had on my garden rock? If you squinted at it it looked like a dog’s head? She come pounding on the door yelling her head off. I thought something terrible’d happened. Couldn’t get her to stop yelling and tell me what was the matter. At last she holds out her hand. There’s a tiny cut on one finger, tiny, about a quarter of an inch long. One drop of blood. I put a bandage on it and she calmed down. Wouldn’t say how she got the cut. But a couple days later she says to be that she threw away ‘the dog-face stone’ and it bit her. She says it was a dog bite on her finger.”

The aunt laughed to show it wasn’t anything to have a fit about.

Related Characters: Agnis Hamm (speaker), Quoyle , Bunny Quoyle , Wavey Prowse , Nolan Quoyle
Related Symbols: House, White Dog
Page Number: 133
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 33: The Cousin Quotes

In the man before him, in the hut, crammed with the poverty of another century, Quoyle saw what he had sprung from. For the old man was mad, the gears of his mind stripped long ago to clashing discs edged with the stubs of broken cogs. Mad with loneliness or lovelessness, or from some genetic chemical jungle, or the flooding betrayal that all hermits suffer. Lops of fishing line underfoot, the snarl tangled into compacted detritus, a churn of splinters, sand, rain, sea wet, mud, bits of wool, gnawed sheep ribs, spruce needles, fish scales and bones, burst air bladders, seal offal, squid cartilage, broken glass, torn cloth, dog hair, nail pairings, bark and blood.

Related Characters: Quoyle , Agnis Hamm , Nolan Quoyle, Tert Card
Related Symbols: House, Knots
Page Number: 264-265
Explanation and Analysis:
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Nolan Quoyle Quotes in The Shipping News

The The Shipping News quotes below are all either spoken by Nolan Quoyle or refer to Nolan Quoyle. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Love and Family Theme Icon
).
Chapter 15: The Upholstery Shop Quotes

“Yes of course I remember. […] There was another white dog adventure couple weeks ago. You know that little white stone I had on my garden rock? If you squinted at it it looked like a dog’s head? She come pounding on the door yelling her head off. I thought something terrible’d happened. Couldn’t get her to stop yelling and tell me what was the matter. At last she holds out her hand. There’s a tiny cut on one finger, tiny, about a quarter of an inch long. One drop of blood. I put a bandage on it and she calmed down. Wouldn’t say how she got the cut. But a couple days later she says to be that she threw away ‘the dog-face stone’ and it bit her. She says it was a dog bite on her finger.”

The aunt laughed to show it wasn’t anything to have a fit about.

Related Characters: Agnis Hamm (speaker), Quoyle , Bunny Quoyle , Wavey Prowse , Nolan Quoyle
Related Symbols: House, White Dog
Page Number: 133
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 33: The Cousin Quotes

In the man before him, in the hut, crammed with the poverty of another century, Quoyle saw what he had sprung from. For the old man was mad, the gears of his mind stripped long ago to clashing discs edged with the stubs of broken cogs. Mad with loneliness or lovelessness, or from some genetic chemical jungle, or the flooding betrayal that all hermits suffer. Lops of fishing line underfoot, the snarl tangled into compacted detritus, a churn of splinters, sand, rain, sea wet, mud, bits of wool, gnawed sheep ribs, spruce needles, fish scales and bones, burst air bladders, seal offal, squid cartilage, broken glass, torn cloth, dog hair, nail pairings, bark and blood.

Related Characters: Quoyle , Agnis Hamm , Nolan Quoyle, Tert Card
Related Symbols: House, Knots
Page Number: 264-265
Explanation and Analysis: