How we cite our quotes: Citations follow this format: (Chapter)
Quote #4
"An actor?" Bore blurted as if it finally got through to him. "Thank God Kenneth isn't a lunatic."
"Dad, it's the only thing I'm really interested in doing. I want to go to acting school right after graduation. Everyone says that's what I should be, with my imagination—"
"Try eating your imagination when you're hungry sometime."
"I just don't want to wear a suit every day and carry an attaché case and ride a subway. I want to be me. Just me. Not a phony in the crowd."
"Who's asking you to be a phony?"
"You are."
"I'm asking you to try working for a change. At your age I was working hard, not floundering around in a fool's dream world." (7)
This conversation between John and his father is a typical "generation gap" conversation. John's father doesn't understand his son, or try to, even calling him a "lunatic."
Quote #5
[Lorraine:] There's one picture of my mother and father in an album, which is how I like to remember them. He's wearing a football uniform—a handsome young man—with his arm around her. She's wearing one of those funny raccoon coats. They're smiling at each other in a grass field somewhere in Stapleton. (10)
Lorraine's parents were young, in love, and happy once. Here we see a glimpse of the happy young woman Lorraine's mother once was. (Stapleton is a waterfront neighborhood on Staten Island.)
Quote #6
"Dinner is served," she [Lorraine] announced, carrying this big plate of congealed spaghetti. We each sat at opposite ends of the table with the candles burning away. I [John] poured us some wine in these long-stemmed glasses, and for a few moments we just sat looking at each other—her with the feather in her hair and me with my moustache.
"To the Pigman," I said softly.
"To the Pigman."
She lifted her glass, and she was lovely. (11)
Lorraine and John seem to be playing a more grown-up version of "dress-up," practicing to enter the adult world. Their costumes and roles seem to have freed them to show their attraction to one another. This scene takes place immediately after their first kiss (also in costume) and it is the first time John tells us that he thinks Lorraine is "lovely."