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The Lunatic/Mike Bickle
Mr. Birkway is Sal and Phoebe’s English teacher. He’s a lively man who clearly loves his subject, and though Sal describes him as “peculiar,” he also has an endearing ability to make a person feel like he wants nothing more than to listen to whatever they have to say. He helps teach his students the value of difference and perspective, which he intends to teach by reading passages from his students’ summer journals aloud. To some degree, this works: he uses passages to make points about how people see things differently, and he suggests that what a person takes away from a particular literary work will always be unique to them. But Mr. Birkway decides that reading the journals aloud was a mistake when he reads Phoebe’s journal and discovers that Phoebe believes Mrs. Cadaver is a murderer who hacked up her own husband. After this, Mr. Birkway reveals to Phoebe and Sal that Mrs. Cadaver is his twin sister, and that Mr. Cadaver died in the car crash that blinded Margaret and Mr. Birkway’s mother, Mrs. Partridge.
Mr. Birkway Quotes in Walk Two Moons
The Walk Two Moons quotes below are all either spoken by Mr. Birkway or refer to Mr. Birkway. 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:
).
Chapter 20
Quotes
In my mini journal, I confessed that I had since kissed all different kinds of trees, and each family of trees—oaks, maples, elms, birches—had a special flavor all its own. Mixed which each tree’s taste was the slight taste of blackberries, and why this was so, I could not explain.
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“He probably never took English,” Phoebe said.
To me that Y looked like the newly born horse standing up on his thin legs.
The poem was about a newlY born horse who doesn’t know anything but feels everything. He lives in a “smoothbeautifully folded” world. I liked that. I was not sure what it was, but I liked it. Everything sounded soft and safe.
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Chapter 30
Quotes
Instead, I lay there thinking of the poem about the traveler, and I could see the tide rising and falling, and those horrid white hands snatching the traveler. How could it be normal, that traveler dying? And how could such a thing be normal and terrible both at the same time?
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Chapter 37
Quotes
If there had been a vase, would have squashed it, because our heads moved completely together and our lips landed in the right place, which was on the other person’s lips. It was a real kiss, and it did not taste like chicken.
And then our heads moved slowly backward and we stared out across the lawn, and I felt like the newlY born horse who knows nothing but feels everything.
Ben touched his lips. “Did it taste a little like blackberries to you?” He said.
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Mr. Birkway Quotes in Walk Two Moons
The Walk Two Moons quotes below are all either spoken by Mr. Birkway or refer to Mr. Birkway. 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:
).
Chapter 20
Quotes
In my mini journal, I confessed that I had since kissed all different kinds of trees, and each family of trees—oaks, maples, elms, birches—had a special flavor all its own. Mixed which each tree’s taste was the slight taste of blackberries, and why this was so, I could not explain.
Related Characters:
Related Symbols:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
“He probably never took English,” Phoebe said.
To me that Y looked like the newly born horse standing up on his thin legs.
The poem was about a newlY born horse who doesn’t know anything but feels everything. He lives in a “smoothbeautifully folded” world. I liked that. I was not sure what it was, but I liked it. Everything sounded soft and safe.
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Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 30
Quotes
Instead, I lay there thinking of the poem about the traveler, and I could see the tide rising and falling, and those horrid white hands snatching the traveler. How could it be normal, that traveler dying? And how could such a thing be normal and terrible both at the same time?
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Chapter 37
Quotes
If there had been a vase, would have squashed it, because our heads moved completely together and our lips landed in the right place, which was on the other person’s lips. It was a real kiss, and it did not taste like chicken.
And then our heads moved slowly backward and we stared out across the lawn, and I felt like the newlY born horse who knows nothing but feels everything.
Ben touched his lips. “Did it taste a little like blackberries to you?” He said.
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Page Number and Citation:
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