He had the dog on a lead and he was still managing to be a boy with a dog and the dog was still managing to be a dog with a boy because not even a bomb gets to wipe out everything, and this little bit was missed in the blow-up, the fall-out, the death-toll, the regrettable acts of war.
In the final climactic bit of the novel when the military from the Tech City come to attack Wreck City and the radiation-affected people come out of the hiding, this is the image that sticks out the most and strikes Billie. The boy and the dog are heavily affected by the radiation, that is clear, but in the way that they walk side by side as a normal boy and a normal dog shows hope, shows the resistance of humanity in the harshest conditions. It shows that despite the bombing and destruction, the regrettable acts of war (which is written in italic to have an ironic tone), the very thing that makes one human, the soul, remains.
We had spoiled and ruined what we had been given, and now it had been given again. This was the fairytale, the happy ending. The buried treasure was really there.
This quote is from the part of the novel when Billie and the rest arrive to the Planet Blue. Their home planet is dying, and they discovered this new paradise for a new hopeful beginning. Well, up until they decide to ruin their chances by maneuvering and asteroid to destroy all life on this planet so it becomes habitable to humans. The irony of the selfishness of humans is immense in this part, destroying in order to make place for themselves.
That one thing should stand for another is no harm, until the thing itself loses any meaning of its own. The island trees and all of this good land were sacrificed to a meaning that has now become meaningless. To build the Stone Gods, the island has been destroyed, and now the Stone Gods are themselves destroyed.
This quote sums up the main argument of the novel, that destruction only breeds more destruction. In the first part of the novel which provides a possible story of how the dinosaurs were destroyed and humans came to live on Earth, shows how humans purposefully destroyed (sacrificed) life on Planet Blue in order to make it habitable, because humans managed to destroyed their previous home. This proves meaningless towards the end when humans again manage to bring destruction to themselves and the planet, just like the Stone Gods themselves are destroyed, despite the sacrifice of the island.
