How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #4
"White people identify more with other white people, you know what I mean?" (3.33)
Millard Farmer is explaining why juries are more likely to give the death penalty to people who murder whites. Juries are generally majority white, and white people feel more compassion for white victims. Compassion, then, is not necessarily a force for good, or forgiveness. Instead, it sometimes works as a spur to vengeance—and as a racist spur to vengeance at that.
Quote #5
"I thought you had a heart attack. I thought I was going to have to go through this by myself. Please, please take care of yourself." (4.95)
Pat, the murderer, feels compassion and concern for Prejean—though there's some self-interest there, too. Does that make the compassion invalid? Surely there's a measure of selfishness in much compassion or caring for loved ones; people don't want to go on without those they love. But that doesn't necessarily make it fake.
Quote #6
"Your choice," I tell him, "if you want your last words to be words of hate… But there's another side to you too… a part of you that wants not to be shriveled up by hate, a part of you that wants to die a free and loving man." (4.130)
Prejean encourages Pat to forgive those who want to see him die. Again, forgiveness is presented as being in part a matter of self-interest. Hate hurts the hater. It certainly hurt Pat; if he'd been a free and loving man in the first place, he maybe wouldn't have committed the horrible murder, and then he wouldn't be in this mess.