Jack Quotes

Ma is the only person Jack knows, so he is incredibly close to her. To him, the worst punishment is to be separated from his mother. That's awfully sweet… and borderline Norman Bates, but he's only five, so we're sticking with "sweet" for now.

Jack has a hard time understanding the intricacies of family at first—it's weird for him that his mother also had a mother. He thought his only family was Ma, and that her only family was him, but it's actually much larger than that. One thing Jack keeps learning is how much bigger and more complex the world is than he thinks, and this is a good example of that.

Although Jack can pick up on the change in Ma's tone of voice, he doesn't understand why she sounds this way. She's been trapped inside Room for eight years, with nowhere else to go. Not a day goes by without her wishing she was out of there.

Jack is coming up with ideas from cartoons, which is a nice thought. If only escape in real life was as easy as it is in the cartoons. Our calls to Acme for a big crate of dynamite always go unanswered… and probably have us monitored by the NSA.

Whew, that's one paragraph. One long, exhausting paragraph. Of course, it's not exhausting to Jack. While he's listing a whole bunch of mundane objects, they're all new and fascinating for him to see. Each of these things flying by as the car zooms down the room provides Jack with an opportunity for exploration.

This is Jack's response when Ma tries to think of a plan of escape. Do you think Jack wants to stay out of fear, or does he want to stay because Room is home? Or is it a little bit of both?

A home is a place you feel safe. It takes a long time for Jack to find a safe place when he's in the Outside. No wonder he wants to go back to Room even though other people, including Ma, see it as a prison.

Note that Jack calls Grandma's home "the house" at first. He doesn't call it home because he doesn't yet feel comfortable there.

This is a good question. Ma calls her new apartment "home" mostly out of a hope that it will be. Jack understands, at five, that they will have to make it a home; it doesn't come ready-made that way.

Once Jack finds himself Outside Room, he is kind of like Meltedy Spoon… he's not the same as anyone else. Although a lot of people like him because of his differences, they also want to make him a part of society. But taking Room out of Jack would be like unmelting the spoon.

Ma has to teach Jack how to behave in "polite society," and a lot of being polite is all in how you word things. It's funny how little tricks like this are passed down from generation to generation. We later learn that Grandma taught Ma this sly way of wording things.

All of Jack's questions make Ma, and us, question society's arbitrary rules and customs. Ma has to strike a balance between letting Jack live the way he wants to live and teaching him to conform to society's rules.

Ma uses TV mostly to educate Jack, watching educational shows like Dora and playing the Parrot game—in which Jack repeats back what people say—to build his vocabulary. She limits the use of TV, though, because most TV isn't educational at all, especially not to a five-year-old.

Ma is pretty patient, but Jack is patient, too. Even at a young age, he realizes that he sometimes forgets things, but this doesn't frustrate him. He just knows he has to be reminded of things, and everything will be okay.

Revealing to Jack that TV is kind of real opens up a whole new world for Jack to learn about. This revelation changes Jack's entire world, making him think about everything in a whole new way.

This is a pretty profound line from a five-year-old. Most kids don't learn to take care of their things for a very, very long time. Jack has learned this lesson pretty early.

Jack is talking about Alice in Wonderland here, and he's relating it to himself. When Jack's view of the world changes because of new knowledge, he changes right along with it. His identity, especially at such a young age, is closely tied together with how he sees the world, and how he thinks he fits in it.

Lots of the "stories" Ma tells Jack, like How the Berlin Wall Fell Down and Princess Diana are stories of actual events. Even the fairytales, like the mermaid who has a child in captivity, are allegories. Is there anything allegorical about Room itself?

The more knowledge Jack gets, the more he thinks he knows everything. He doesn't yet have the knowledge to know that he will never know everything.

Jack wants to know everything, and we mean everything, even if it makes him feel uncomfortable, scared, or weird. That's pretty ambitious for someone of any age.