How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Section.Paragraph)
Quote #1
Once, fifty miles down the valley, my father bored a well. The drill came up first with topsoil and then with gravel and then with white sea sand full of shells and even pieces of whalebone. There were twenty deep of sand and then black earth again, and even a piece of redwood, that imperishable wood that does not rot. Before the inland sea the valley must have been a forest. (1.1.5)
The sedimentary layers of the Salinas Valley are like a prehistoric timeline. We've got primordial oceans where there are now dry hills (major change there), the remnants of imperishable forests (not subject to time—how cool is that?), and all sorts of crazy cool evidence of a ridiculously old past. It's almost like watching the earth form, and seeing the present as just another layer in that story. And what other story just so happens to be about the earth forming? Genesis. What a coincidence.
Quote #2
There was a time when people kept their fly buttons fastened. And man's freedom was boiling off. And even childhood was no good any more—not the way it was. No worry then but how to find a good stone, not round exactly but flattened and water-shaped, to use in a sling pouch cut from a discarded shoe. Where did all the good stones go, and all simplicity? (12.1.2)
Yeah, we would love to go back to the good old days when people threw rocks into lakes for entertainment. In this passage, the narrator is putting on the voice of a crotchety old man complaining about the kids these days with their fast cars and rock n' roll music—get with the times, Gramps. The point of this quote is to show that it's very typical to idealize the past. It's easy because the past isn't here anymore, so we can choose to remember it however we want, but does that mean that the past (generally speaking) was actually so great?
Quote #3
Let's get it over and the door closed shut on it! Let's close it like a book and get on reading! New chapter, new life. A man will have clean hands once we get the lid slammed s*** on that stinking century. (12.1.17-18)
Compared to the last passage, this one is a complete 180—down with the past, and up with the future. But both passages take a hyperbolic stance, which is a fancy way of saying that they take an extreme view on either side of an issue. Just as it's not always true that the past was a better time, it's also not always true that the future will be better just because it's the future. While the future might be a clean slate, underlying this quote is the knowledge that World War I is looming on the horizon.