This Boy's Life - Quotes

Question 1

FATE VS AGENCY ‘I began to feel

Answer 1

‘I began to feel that all of this was fated, that I was bound to accept as my home a place I did not feel at home in, and to take as my father a man who was offended by my existence, and would never stop questioning my right to it’

Question 2

AMERICAN DREAM - 2 QUOTES

Answer 2

‘I was fiercely conventional’
‘I was tempted by the idea of belonging to a conventional family, and living in a house, and having a brother and a couple of sisters’.

Question 3

IDENTITY ‘I wanted

Answer 3

‘I wanted to call myself Jack, after Jack London. I believed that having his name would charge me with some of the strength and competence inherent in my idea of him’.

Question 4

IDENTITY ‘the trouble with me was

Answer 4

The trouble with me was, I thought I was going to get through life without doing any work. The trouble with me was, I thought I was smarter than everyone else. The trouble with me was, I thought other people couldn’t tell what I was thinking. The trouble with me was, I didn’t think’.

Question 5

IDENTITY ‘all my

Answer 5

All my images of myself as I wished to be were images of myself armed.

Question 6

IDENTITY ‘because

Answer 6

Because I did not know who I was, any images of myself, no matter how grotesque, had power over me

Question 7

IDENTITY ‘That much

Answer 7

That much I understand now. But the man can give no help to the boy, not in this matter nor in those that follow. The boy moves always out of reach.

Question 8

IDENTITY ‘the boy

Answer 8

The boy who lived in the letters, the splendid phantom who carried all my hopes, it seemed to me I saw, at last, my own face.

Question 9

IDENTITY ‘these were

Answer 9

These were ideas that I held on to for dear life. Now I gave them voice.

Question 10

IDENTITY ‘that he had

Answer 10

That he had not ‘reached me’ at all, because I was not able to be reached.

Question 11

CHANGE ‘we

Answer 11

We were going to change our luck

Question 12

CHANGE ‘she was

Answer 12

She was going to make up for lost time, and I was going to help her.

Question 13

CHANGE ‘in my heart

Answer 13

In my heart I despised the life I led in Seattle. And had no idea how to change it.

Question 14

CHANGE/TRANSFORMATION ‘they were

Answer 14

They were already dying. The change from salt to fresh water had turned their flesh rotten.

Question 15

POWER ‘power can be

Answer 15

Power can be enjoyed only when it is recognised and feared. Fearlessness in those without power is maddening to those who have it.

Question 16

POWER ‘I sometimes

Answer 16

I sometimes had to bite my lip from laughing in the ecstasy of my power over them, and at their absurd and innocent belief that they were safe.

Question 17

POWER ‘dwight

Answer 17

Dwight made a study of me.

Question 18

UNIFORMITY - ‘my

Answer 18

My uniform, baggy and barren though it was, made me feel like a soldier

Question 19

UNIFORMITY ‘I understood

Answer 19

I understood that I was being outfitted not for pleasure but for survival, that these clothes were a finely nuanced language that the boys in my new world would read at a glance and judge me by, even as I had judges other boys by the uniforms they wore’

Question 20

UNIFORMITY ‘I read

Answer 20

I read it in a trance, accepting without question its narcotic invitation to believe that I was really no different from the boys whose hustle and pluck it celebrated.

Question 21

MASCULINITY ‘only

Answer 21

Only slowing down for a breath after rally close calls, and then laughing to show he wasn’t afraid.

Question 22

MASCULINITY ‘using

Answer 22

Using all the gestures of fatherly affection while measuring my horror with a cold bitter gaze, giving new pain to himself as if he had no choice.

Question 23

TRANSFORMATION ‘I was

Answer 23

I was caught up in my mother’s freedom, her delight in freedom, and her dream of transformation.

Question 24

REBELLION ‘to me

Answer 24

To me stealing was a serious business, so much so that I dissembles its seriousness.

Question 25

REBELLION ‘one

Answer 25

One afternoon I pulled the trigger.

Question 26

REBELLION ‘I

Answer 26

I was a thief. By my own estimation, a master thief.

Question 27

REBELLION ‘a

Answer 27

A transparent little klepto.

Question 28

IMAGINATION ‘I

Answer 28

I imagined being adopted by different people I saw on the street

Question 29

INNOCENCE ‘we

Answer 29

We buried it behind our building under a cross made of Popsicle sticks, and I blubbered the whole time

Question 30

INNOCENCE ‘had

Answer 30

Had become completely convinced of my own innocence

Question 31

INNOCENCE ‘looking

Answer 31

Looking more innocent than any innocent person had any business looking.

Question 32

INNOCENCE ‘what

Answer 32

What I liked best about the handbook was its voice, the bluff hail-fellow language by which it tried to make being a good boy seem adventurous, even romantic.

Question 33

DESENSITISATION ‘it

Answer 33

It never ended, and before long it lost its power to hurt me.

Question 34

DESENSITISATION ‘I

Answer 34

I experienced it re as bad weather to get through, not biting, just close and dim and heavy.

Question 35

ACHIEVEMENT ‘I

Answer 35

I read the handbook almost every night, cruising for easy merit badges.

Question 36

LIGHT/DARK ‘the sun

Answer 36

The sun didn’t make it up over the peaks before classes started in the morning, and it was gone behind the western rim by the time school let out

Question 37

LIGHT/DARK ‘I

Answer 37

I lived in perpetual dusk.

Question 38

LIGHT/DARK ‘the absence

Answer 38

The absence of light became oppressive to me. It took on the weight of other absences I could not admit or even define but felt sharply, on my own in this new place.

Question 39

LIGHT/DARK ‘finally

Answer 39

Finally, because the antique yellow of the ivory looked wrong to Dwight against the new white,me very carefully painted the keys, all except the black ones, of course.

Question 40

COOL ‘coolness

Answer 40

Coolness did not demand anything as obvious as that. Like chess or music, coolness claimed its own out of some mysterious impulse of recognition. Uncoolness did likewise. We had been claimed by uncoolness.

Question 41

FATE VS AGENCY ‘I did not believe’

Answer 41

‘I did not believe my mother when she told me it wasn’t too late. I knew she meant what she said, but it seems to me she was deceiving herself. Things had gone too far. And somehow it was her telling me it wasn’t too late that made me believe, past all doubt, that it was. Those words still sound to me less like hope than an epitaph, the last lie we tell before hurling ourselves over the brink’