How we cite our quotes: The book doesn't have numbered or titled chapters, but it is broken up into sections with sub-sections under these. We'll call this Chapter:Section:Paragraph.
Quote #1
What am I saving myself for? she asked herself. What unhappy Bober fate? (2.3.96)
Note the link Helen makes between her family name, Bober, and an unhappy fate. She doesn't know exactly what the future will bring, but she assumes it will not be pleasant. Her choices have the sunny prospects of an Aimee Mann song.
Quote #2
Frank tried things that Morris and she could never do, such as attempting to sell people more than they asked for, and usually he succeeded. (3.3.2)
It's possible the "unhappy Bober fate," as Helen calls it, boils down to her parents' decision long ago to start a business for which they were ill suited. They're not inclined to suggest the super-size. They're not salespeople.
Quote #3
That's what they lived for, Frank thought, to suffer. (4.4.5)
Frank, who wants to get ahead of misery, sees the Bobers as a family bound to their suffering, unable to shake it off. They seem to live to suffer. Perhaps that's why they fascinate him so.
Quote #4
That's why his luck had so often curdled, because he had the wrong idea of what he was and had spent all his energy trying to do the wrong things. Then when he had asked himself what he should be doing, he had another powerful idea, that he was meant for crime. (4.5.10)
This idea doesn't last, as Frank quickly learns how poorly prepared he is for a life of crime. He has a conscience, a very active one, and it won't leave him alone.
Quote #5
"It was a tragic thing to happen."
"I couldn't expect better," he said.
"Life renews itself."
"My luck stays the same." (4.6.98-101)
At times, Frank feels himself as bound to suffering as the Bobers are. It's important to notice that he speaks here of luck rather than fate. Luck can change, even if his hasn't yet seemed to do so. Fate is fate.
Quote #6
"When I don't feel hurt, I hope they bury me." (5.3.102)
Frank is almost attracted to pain and suffering. It's become a part of who he is. While he wants to rise above it, the idea of leaving it behind scares him.
Quote #7
His goddamned life had pushed him wherever he went; he had led it nowhere. He was blown around in any breath that blew, owned nothing, not even experience to show for the years he had lived. (7.2.6)
Anger! Frank is angry at how his life has gone. His anger pushes him to will something different for himself. His anger helps give him hope. But, as you can see, he still struggles to believe he has a choice in all this.
Quote #8
More than ever she felt herself a victim of circumstance—in a bad dream symbolized by the nightmarish store below, and the relentless, scheming presence of the clerk, whom she should have shouted out of the house but had selfishly spared. (7.2.11)
Helen's feelings illustrate a blending of free will and fate. Escaping the store is out of her power, for now, but the presence of Frank has persisted in part because of choices she's made.
Quote #9
The March wind hastened him along, prodding the shoulders. He felt weightless, unmanned, the victim in motion of whatever blew at his back; wind, worries, debts, Karp, holdupniks, ruin. He did not go, he was pushed. He had the will of a victim, no will to speak of. (8.5.11)
Both Morris and Frank describe themselves as having been moved along by a powerful wind. See the "Symbols, Imagery, Allegory" section of this guide for more discussion of this image.
Quote #10
So he had shoveled snow in the street, but did it have to snow in April? And if it did, did he have to get sick the minute he stepped out into the open air? It frustrated him hopelessly that every move he made seemed to turn into an inevitable thing. (9.3.71)
Morris feels as though he's making choices, but that they're swept into a design he didn't make and has no say in.