"For at the very moment you have Now, it flees. It is gone. It is, on the instant, Then. Surely."
Treacle Walker explains his relationship to time and how he sees the present moment as one that can never truly be the present. The second that we acknowledge the present, it has already passed and become the past, because time does not stop during that moment of recognition. This phenomenon has also been referred to in philosophy as the paradox of the present.
"What is out is in. What is in is out."
This quote is one of Treacle Walker's many paradoxes, where he brings together two ideas that appear to contradict each other, thus causing us to question things that we intuitively believe to be true about the world. He breaks down the notion of "out" and "in" and puts them together, which causes them to lose their stable definitions.
"The stone is for you. You are for the stone."
Treacle Walker utters this statement during his very first time meeting Joe, foreshadowing the later events where Joe must use the stone in order to fight off the cuckoo and the Brit Basher. He hints at the stone's future importance for Joe.
"You have the glamourie... In just the one. And that's no bad thing, if you have the knowing."
When Joe first meets Thin Amren, Thin Amren realizes that Joe has "second sight" which allows him to see beyond his typical reality. He calls this ability a "glamourie," an obsolete word meaning magic. He also hints at the fact that Joe will eventually have to learn how to use and accept, through "knowing," this new power.
It was a blue-grey day; no use to anyone.
This quote exemplifies the generalized tone that the novel sometimes adopts. The details do not give the reader any real or precise understanding of time passing or the season, and instead, describe the day by emphasizing its quotidian and average nature.
"I have been through Hickety, Pickety, France and High Spain... by crinkum-crankums, crooks and straights. And I am at your pear, with my ears in my hat, my back in my coat, and two squat kickering tattery shoes full of roadwayish water."
This quote is a good example of the wordplay and rhyming speech style that Treacle Walker often uses. His dialogue is full of different word games and rhymes that sound almost as if they are from a nursery rhyme, such as "hickety" and "pickety." However, he also often speaks in profound, short maxims; this contrast lends Treacle Walker depth, as he brings comedy into the narrative while also introducing some of the novel's most important overarching themes.
"Why's the house there? Why?" said Joe. "It's a story! Knockout! A story!"
As Joe reads his Knockout comic book, he sees that the comic book starts changing and he sees his own house depicted on its pages. This development points towards the collapsing boundaries around Joe's understanding of his own reality; he can no longer rely on the boundary between reality and the comic book to remain. This quote also relates to the novel's exploration of time. Rather than the comic book's story being stable and already written, the comic book starts to align with the present moment, reflecting the house and Joe himself, and leaving the rest of its pages blank.
"I can't tell what's real and what isn't."
"What is 'real,' Joseph Coppock?"
After Joe develops the glamourie in his "good" eye, he continuously tries to resist it. However, Treacle Walker encourages him to consider how the glamourie may not be as bad as Joe thinks it is, since the reality Joe wishes to return to may not be as stable or "real" as Joe thinks it is.
Again the sky was torn. And in the gap was a bird; huge, wings spread, claws open to clench the house.
This quote occurs during the climactic scene in which Joe, Treacle Walker, the cuckoo, and Thin Amren all encounter each other at the bog. It is one of the few instances where the novel's descriptive tone becomes highly evocative, using strong visual language to convey the bird's terrifying presence and the violence of the sky "tearing" open.
The Words came, to his mouth, to his mind, from within and without and the dark and the light and the knowing.
When Joe transforms into Treacle Walker, he suddenly finds that he knows exactly the right words in order to get the pony to move. These "Words" reflect the prior contradictions that Treacle Walker often spoke of and which Joe struggled to understand. In a prior scene, Treacle Walker confused Joe by stating that "what's out is in" and that "what's in is out." Here, we see Joe repeat a similar phrase, stating that "from within and without," demonstrating his development and path toward accepting Treacle Walker's approach to life.
