Fahrenheit 451 Pages 50-60 NOTES

• "We burnt a thousand books. We burnt a woman."                                                      "Well?"....."She nothing to me; she shouldn't have had books. It was her responsibility, she should have thought of that. I hate her. She's got you going and next thing you know we'll be out, no house, no job, nothing." (Page 50-51) Montag confronts Mildred about possibly quitting his job after a horrid experience of burning an elderly woman along with her books and what's more disturbing is his wife's reaction.
• "Mildred's hand froze behind the pillow. Her fingers were tracing the book's outline and as the shape became familiar her faced looked surprised and then stunned." (Page 56) Mildred discovers that Montag is hiding a book he had stolen for the old lady's house behind his pillow just as Beatty is giving Montag the speech about how every firefighter at one point has the urge to steal a book out of curiosity.
• She didn't want to know how a thing was done, but why. That can be embarassing. You ask why to do a lot of things and you end up very unhappy indeed, if you keep at it. The poor girl's better off dead."                                                                        "Yes, dead." (Page 60) Montag brings up Clarisse to Beatty and he explains that they had close watch on her family and they seemed fishy. Girl's like her were too curious and didn't ask the right questions so she was obviously better off dead than in a world of people who didn't accept the type of person she was.