This Boy's Life Quotes

Question 1

Fearlessness in those without power is

Answer 1

maddening to those who have it.”

Question 2

Happiness is endless hapiness, innocent of its own sure passing.

Answer 2

Pain is endless pain.”

Question 3

Want! You must want something.

Answer 3

What do you want?”

Question 4

“And I learned that it’s a bad idea to curse if you’re in trouble,

Answer 4

but a good idea to sing, if you can.”

Question 5

I was caught up in my mother’s freedom,

Answer 5

her delight in her freedom, her dream of transformation.”

Question 6

“I didn’t come to Utah to be the same boy I’d been before.

Answer 6

I had my own dreams of transformation…”

Question 7

“All the images of myself as I wished

Answer 7

to be were images of myself armed.”

Question 8

“It was the kind of room that B-movie detectives wake up in,

Answer 8

bound and gagged after they’ve been slipped a Mickey.”

Question 9

“The effect on them would have been careless,

Answer 9

just one of style, and I took note of it.”

Question 10

“The words came as easily as if someone were

Answer 10

breathing them into my ear.”

Question 11

“I imagined being adopted by

Answer 11

different people I saw on the street.”

Question 12

“He would hold no grudges as long as

Answer 12

my mother walked the line”

Question 13

“I was tempted by the idea of belonging to a conventional family, and living in a house,

Answer 13

and having a big brother and a couple of sisters—especially if one of those sisters was Norma.”

Question 14

He smiled at me and put his hand on my shoulder and made frequent references to

Answer 14

fun things we’d done together. And I played along.”

Question 15

“I was my mother’s son.

Answer 15

I could not be anybody else’s.”

Question 16

“I hear his voice in my own when I

Answer 16

speak to my children in anger.”

Question 17

I thought she was pathetic

Answer 17

and so did she.”

Question 18

“His family had always been Jews,

Answer 18

but I had to wait ten years before learning this.”

Question 19

“My mother didn’t tell me what went on between her and Roy,

Answer 19

the threats and occasional brutality with which he held her in place.

Question 20

“I nodded and presented her with an

Answer 20

expression that was meant to register dawning comprehension.”

Question 21

“I did an imitation of somebody

Answer 21

receiving divine reassurance and inspiration.”

Question 22

“I burned the envelope and note in the sink

Answer 22

and washed the ashes down the drain.”

Question 23

“Those words still sound to me less like a hope than an epitaph,

Answer 23

the last lie we tell before hurling ourselves over the brink.”

Question 24

“I did not want to break cover,

Answer 24

but I had no choice.”

Question 25

“‘My father left them to me,” I said.

Answer 25

‘After he died.’”

Question 26

“I was subject to fits of feeling unworthy,

Answer 26

somehow deeply at fault.”

Question 27

“I was a thief. By my own estimation,

Answer 27

a master thief.”

Question 28

Even more than his anger,

Answer 28

his righteousness scared me to the point where my stomach cramped up.”

Question 29

“In the past, I had been ready, even when innocent, to believe any evil thing of myself.

Answer 29

Now that I had grounds for guilt, I could no longer feel it.”

Question 30

One night he kissed me, or I kissed him, or we kissed each other. It surprised us both.

Answer 30

After that, whenever we felt particularly close, we turned on each other.”

Question 31

“I knew that Mr. Bolger would see through me

Answer 31

and be disgusted.”

Question 32

I didn’t need to see the tears in Mr. Welch’s

Answer 32

eyes to know that I had brought shame on myself.”

Question 33

I sometimes had to bite my lip to keep

Answer 33

from laughing in the ecstasy of my power over them.”

Question 34

She needed me and to be

Answer 34

needed made me feel capable.

Question 35

I sat where I was, both hands on the dashboard.

Answer 35

We were all over the road.”

Question 36

I was also a thief. Dwight’s reason for calling me one was trivial,

Answer 36

based on my having taken his hunting knife without permission. My thefts were real.”

Question 37

I wanted to confound these sharpies,

Answer 37

show them I wasn’t as dumb as they thought I was.”

Question 38

From behind my wound,

Answer 38

I said things to Dwight that I never would have said before.”

Question 39

I stood in the darkness on the other side, silently hugging

Answer 39

the rifle, sweating and shaking as in a fever.”

Question 40

He had escaped Tina Flood,

Answer 40

he had escaped prison, and before long he would escape me.”

Question 41

I wanted to call myself Jack, after Jack London.

Answer 41

believed that having his name would charge me with some of the strength and competence inherent of my idea of him.”

Question 42

The rest of us carried on. We did so in a resolutely innocent way,

Answer 42

without ever admitting to ourselves what the real object was: that is, to bring somebody down.”

Question 43

“I thought Roy was

Answer 43

what a man should be.”

Question 44

I needed that rifle, for itself

Answer 44

and for the way it completed me when I held it.”

Question 45

We should have looked cool,

Answer 45

but we didn’t

Question 46

He was grinning. He crossed the room and sat on Skipper’s bed.

Answer 46

Still grinning, he said, “Who won?

Question 47

Dwight was in his glory.

Answer 47

He cleared the utility room for action and put me back in training.”

Question 48

I felt a surge of pride and connection;

Answer 48

connection not to him but to Dwight.”

Question 49

There was a dash of swagger to his pose, something of the stage cavalier

Answer 49

but his smile was friendly and hopeful.”

Question 50

I saw the time was right to

Answer 50

make a play for souvenirs.

Question 51

the ecstasy at my

Answer 51

power over them.

Question 52

the absurd and innocent

Answer 52

belief that they were safe

Question 53

I had to

Answer 53

shoot

Question 54

The silence made me uncomfortable

Answer 54

and in my discomfort I smiled at Silver

Question 55

‘She was gasping as if someone had held her underwater.’

Answer 55

‘I rocked her and murmured to her. I was practiced at this

Question 56

But Daddy left some marks on her. One of them was a strange docility

Answer 56

almost paralysis with men of a tyrant breed.

Question 57

His clothes were wrong.

Answer 57

I didn’t know why they were but they were

Question 58

I knew my mother would never let herself get

Answer 58

tangled up in a mess like that.

Question 59

But first, she wanted my approval. I thought I had no choice,

Answer 59

so I gave it.’

Question 60

I had fallen in

Answer 60

with some notorious older boys

Question 61

I only wanted

Answer 61

what I couldn’t have