How we cite our quotes: (Paragraph)
Quote #1
"I wish you would manage the time to come in and talk with me about your daughter" (1).
This question, which might be coming from a teacher or a counselor, prompts the narrator to reflect on her daughter's situation.
Quote #2
I do not even know if it matters, or if it explains anything. (7)
The narrator tells us she is unused to reflecting on her life. As she muses on different events, she isn't sure if the events are relevant or not.
Quote #3
[W]hen she saw me she would break into a clogged weeping that could not be comforted, a weeping I can hear yet. (9)
This is one of the heartbreaking scenes where the daughter, even as an infant, is trying and failing to communicate with her mother.
Quote #4
You must have seen it in her pantomimes, you spoke of her rare gift for comedy on the stage that rouses a laughter out of the audience so dear they applaud and applaud and do not want to let her go. (19)
Here we see Emily as a nineteen-year-old with a gift for comedy that seems to come out of nowhere. Compare the audience's reaction to her with her mother's in the previous quote, or the following.
Quote #5
"The clock talked loud. I threw it away, it scared me when it talked." (22)
Emily never directly tells her parents how she feels. Even as a young girl, she seems to be extraordinarily sensitive to her parents' situation, particularly her mother's.
Quote #6
She wrote once a week, the labored writing of a seven-year-old. "I am fine. How is the baby. If I write my leter nicly I will have a star. Lov e." There never was a star. (30)
At the charitable convalescent home for children, all communications with parents are censored, as if there is something dangerous about communication between parents and children, particularly if they are working class.
Quote #7
"Why, Mommy?" The kind of question for which there is no answer. (36)
This is Emily's question about a boy, but it could be a question about life in general.
Quote #8
She was not glib or quick in a world where glibness and quickness were easily confused with ability to learn. (37)
Since the narrator tells us early on (see quote #4 above) that Emily now has a gift for comedy, this description of a younger Emily is surprising.
Quote #9
Mostly Emily had asthma, and her breathing, harsh and labored, would fill the house with a curiously tranquil sound. (39)
Again, this image of Emily and her childhood asthma seems to conflict with the image of her as a confident performer on stage.
Quote #10
Shoogily. A funny word, a family word, inherited from Emily, invented by her to say: comfort. (43)
Emily's talent for catchy, memorable language is evident from an early age.
Quote #11
In this and other ways she leaves her seal, I say aloud. And startle at my saying it. What do I mean? What did I start to gather together, to try and make coherent? (44)
The narrator catches herself saying something that she knows is meaningful, even if she can't express what that meaning is. Interestingly, this moment occurs when she seems to get at the heart of what makes her daughter stand out.