How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #1
I do not do this voluntarily. It's a weakness, I know, a failure of character or morals, this subtle, sneaky, almost enslaving instinct to be like just about anyone I happen to find myself with. It happens not only in matters of speech, but with physical actions as well, in ways I walk or sit or tilt my head or place my arms or hands. (3.5)
Slocum does not realize he has "slipped" into someone else's personality until he is already in there. He takes on the nature of another who has a more powerful personality trait than his own, which causes him to wonder what his own true nature is—or if he even has one.
Quote #2
(There are times, in fact, when I open one of my closet doors and am struck with astonishment by the clothes I find hanging inside. They are all mine, of course, but, for a moment, it's as though I had never seen many of them before.) And I sometimes feel that I would not spend so much time and money and energy chasing around after girls and other women if I were not so frequently in the company of other men who do, or talk as though they wanted to. (3.7)
Slocum doesn't recognize himself at times, and he always feels as if he is copying somebody else. Are the men Slocum works with really to blame for his infidelities? Or is that taking things a bit too far?
Quote #3
I steer clear of people with tics, squints, and facial twitches; these are additional characteristics I don't want to acquire. The problem is that I don't know who or what I really am. (3.8)
While Slocum doesn't mind positive traits rubbing off on him, he dreads negative ones seeping into his life. Slocum avoids being around people who stutter, for fear that he will begin to talk with stutter himself.
Quote #4
I don't know what finally became of Marie Jencks. I never even found out what happened to me. (3.70)
Slocum can't seem to pinpoint the moment when he no longer felt like himself. Was it just a moment that caused him to fall out of touch with himself? Or a series of events?
Quote #5
"You're never the same. You always change. Sometimes you laugh at something I do. Sometimes you get angry and annoyed when I do exactly the same thing and want me to go away. I don't like it when you drink. I never know what to expect." (4.124)
Slocum's daughter confides all this to her father, to which he retorts that he doesn't know how to be a father. There's no instruction manual for parents, and he's simply trying the best he can with what he's got.
Quote #6
"Hey! Here I am. Couldn't you find me? Can't we be together now?" (5.27-28)
Slocum feels he is still a timid little boy inside, just like his own son, and he wishes that that little boy would come out and play. Perhaps Slocum is acting upon some suppressed childhood memories, or perhaps he truly thinks that he would better understand his own son through the eyes and mindset of a child.
Quote #7
He does not know what is happening to him when this does. He does not know what is happening to him now. He wants to be like other boys he thinks, mistakenly, we want him to be like. He thinks he is not now the person anyone wants him to be. We don't want him to be like everybody else. We want him to be like we want him to be (but we haven't spelled that out yet even to ourselves. So how could he know?). We want him to be different, and superior. (But we also want him to be not much different. Frankly, I don't know what I want him to be—except no trouble.) (5.77)
Slocum has no idea what to do with Derek, and feels he cannot guide his own son. If this is how he thinks of Derek, then he has no idea how Derek thinks of him.
Quote #8
Who am I? I think I'm beginning to find out. I am a stick: I am a broken waterlogged branch floating with my own crowd in this one nation of ours, indivisible (unfortunately), under God, with liberty and justice for all who are speedy enough to seize them first and hog them away from the rest. (5.128)
Slocum feels he is nothing more than a singular atom floating around and bobbing from one abstraction to another. Is there a purpose to his life? Will he ever discover it?
Quote #9
I have had to stand still for the longest time now, it seems, for nearly all of my life. Nearly every time I search back I come upon myself standing still inside some memory, sculpted there, or lying flattened as though by strokes from the brush of an illustrator or in transparent blue or purple chemical stains on the glass slide of a microscope or on the single frame of a strip of colored motion picture film. (6.144)
Slocum feels he has had to stand still all of his life. He also fears that he will still be standing still even after he has been moved one giant step forward into Kagle's position. Or is that even a giant step forward? A giant step forward to what?
Quote #10
Much of what I remember about me does not seem to be mine. Mountainous segments of my history appear to be missing. There are yawning gulfs into which large chunks of me may have fallen. I do not always know where I am at present. I sit in my office and think I am home. (7.4)
Slocum doesn't seem to be remembering his past accurately, and he feels that some of his memories are missing. He feels most assured about himself at the office and away from home or the confines of his own mind.