How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Section.Paragraph)
Quote #7
"I don't want to go back. Why do I have to go back?"
"Because Father wants you to."
"That won't make me go." (49.2.22-24)
This is the conversation where Aron is telling Cal that college sucks. The notion that the entire universe doesn't hinge on Adam's wishes blows Cal's mind—his entire existence revolves around trying to make Adam happy. Aron, though, couldn't care less. To him Adam is the idiot father who lost all of his money in a stupid lettuce scheme. How can two brothers hold such different views of the same person? What is the determining factor here? What was it for Charles and Adam with their father?
Quote #8
"Abra, my mother was a whore."
"I know. You told me. My father is a thief."
"I've got her blood, Abra. Don't you understand?"
"I've got his," she said. (55.2.21-24)
Nobody's perfect and everyone has got some skeletons hiding in their closets, and while Cal likes to freak out about this, Abra takes it all with a grain of salt. Familial baggage, to her, is only as big of a deal as you let it be.
Quote #9
"I thought I had inherited both the scars of the fire and the impurities which made the fire necessary—all inherited, I thought. All inherited." (55.3.15)
This is Lee talking, so we know that whatever he's talking about is abstract. Here he's talking about generations inheriting the impurities or mistakes of the generations before them—like family, but on a human race scale. The key word here is thought, though—these aren't things Lee thinks anymore.