They’re stealing the very breath of the Kentucky man, the land.
-- Pa (chapter 7)

Importance: This quote represents Pa’s activism against the company, as well as his ties between his body and the land. It also represents the distrust of authority. Pa works in the coal mine, many folks there have no other choice for employment, but he organizes with the union for their rights, and to protect their town from the Company. This puts him in danger as the Company finds ways to hurt the union and its organizers. Pa also has the coal miner’s lung disease that makes him cough constantly and damages his lungs - and his quote is an allusion to his own disease - his problem breathing. By the end of the novel, Pa dies in the mine around the same time that the mine shuts down, again reiterating the ties between the Kentucky man and...