How we cite our quotes: (Book.Section.Paragraph)
Quote #4
For although I did not trouble to take what Ambrose said to heart, but only to listen to the manner in which he said it—this being the only paltry interest that remained to me now that I had lost hope that man could find the path that led to you—nevertheless his meaning, which I tried to ignore, found its way into my mind together with his words, which I admired so much. (V.14.1)
Well, this is a bit of a switcheroo from the last quote, now isn't it? Ambrose is a good speaker, and so Augustine finds himself listening to Ambrose almost in spite of himself. But, in the spirit of Latin, nota bene: Augustine says that the difference between Ambrose and Faustus is that Ambrose is more learned, while Faustus is the more charismatic speaker (see V.13.2). So, it's Ambrose's intellectual proclivities—i.e., his interest in truth—that begin to pierce through Augustine's preconceptions of Christianity.
Quote #5
For my voice sounded strange and the expression of my face and eyes, my flushed cheeks, and the pitch of my voice told him more of the state of my mind than the actual words that I spoke. (VIII.8.2)
Transformative moment, here we come. Augustine says that he "cannot remember the words [he] used" (VIII.8.2) and that he "performed many bodily actions" (VIII.8.4), so it looks like language is failing him. All Augustine can do is groan and gesture. We imagine he looked something like this. But what exactly is it that ends this key moment? An innocent child's offhand remark to "take it and read it," and a sentence from Paul's Epistles. Make of that what you will.
Quote #6
I read the Psalm and there was fire in my heart, but I could think of no means of helping those deaf corpses, of whom I had myself been one. (IX.4.8)
"Deaf corpses" is a little redundant, don't you think? We mean, if they're dead, then isn't it already implied that they can't hear? Or if they're deaf to begin with, why do they also need to be dead? Our point is, this is a weird phrase, and we're going to talk about it. Here, Augustine is getting at the idea of deafness (in the sense of not wanting to listen) as something that will deaden the soul. So we're talking about a metaphoric death here, which is why he uses both "deaf" and "corpses" together. But let's not forget the other important motif in this sentence—fire (head on over to our Symbols, Imagery, Allegory section for lots more on fire)—which is what reinvigorates Augustine and puts life back into his corpse-soul-heart-thingie. The Psalms are able to put the fire back in him not because someone tries to explain them to Augustine in words, but because Augustine read them. Very closely and very carefully, as we here at Shmoop like to read things.