A rare disorder in which a person’s body has trouble processing certain types of sugars. The syndrome can manifest in a host of symptoms such as skeletal abnormalities, joint dysplasia, and hearing or vision loss. Those with a severe subtype may have a shortened life expectancy (20s to 30s); respiratory failure is the most common cause of death for Morquio patients. Although Morquio syndrome is never mentioned directly in the novel, Philbrick has said that this is the illness Freak suffers from.
Morquio syndrome Quotes in Freak the Mighty
The Freak the Mighty quotes below are all either spoken by Morquio syndrome or refer to Morquio syndrome. For each quote, you can also see the other terms and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Chapter 4
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“The design limitations of the human body. You know, like we’re not bullet-proof and we can’t crush rocks with our bare hands, and if we touch a hot stove we get burned. King Arthur wanted to improve his men, so he made them armor-plated. Then he programmed them to go out and do these quests, slay the dragons and so on, which is sort of how they program robots right now.”
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Chapter 6
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The deal this year is that I get to go with Freak, which Gram thinks is a good idea because she’s afraid he’ll get crushed or something, she actually thinks people are going to step on him, which just goes to show how brainless she can be sometimes, and scared of everything. I mean nobody steps on little kids down there, so why should they step on Freak?
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