Rain Man Guilt and Blame Quotes

When Susanna calls Charlie on being a user, particularly with his brother, he's not willing to admit it—or accept blame for any of his behavior in the wake of his father's death. He continues to believe he is the one who's been wronged.

Here, Charlie is learning that Ray keeps a diary of bad things that people do to him… and because Charlie has been rough with him, he records that Charlie has harmed him. Naturally, instead of feeling guilty/apologizing, Charlie just becomes enraged.

Apparently, Ray also remembers the bad stuff he's done to others—and he was involved in some kind of accident/incident that almost hurt Charlie when Charlie was a baby. In fact, we soon learn, that incident led to his departure for Wallbrook.

There are a couple of things going on here. On the surface level, Charlie is simply apologizing for turning Ray loose on the roulette wheel, where they lost… but really, on a much more profound front, he's apologizing for getting "hot" and "greedy" the entire movie, when he was being impatient with Ray and using him as a bargaining chip to get money out of Doctor Bruner.

Charlie also takes some more blame when he talks to Doctor Bruner about his relationship with Ray/his father. Even though he's still fighting to keep Ray at this point, now it's for the right reasons—and he tells Bruner that he's no longer trying to fight his father's will, having accepted that his dad had every reason to be legit upset with him. Again: a big sign of growth in Charlie's character.