How we cite our quotes: All quotations are from Rain Man.
Quote #1
CHARLIE: I'm sorry about the weekend, hon.
SUSANNA: Charlie, the weekend.
CHARLIE: Look, I told you before, we had a falling out a long time ago. My mother died when I was two. It was just him and me. We, you know, just didn't get along.
Early in the film, Charlie's father dies, and he and Susanna have to forego a weekend trip to go to the funeral in Cincinnati. Here, Charlie is explaining some of the sad backstory to his family. It seems that he and Papa Babbitt lost Charlie's mom when Charlie was quite young, and they never quite got along… and hadn't talked in a long time. Sad times.
Quote #2
SUSANNA: You were his only child. You came along when he was... what, forty-five or something? He probably thought he was never going to have a son, so he had to love you. I think you're exaggerating. You were his child, his son, his blood. Anyway, in these pictures here, he doesn't look like a man who doesn't love his son.
Susanna is trying to convince Charlie that his perception that his father didn't really care about him is off. She's looking at old photos of them and trying to use them as evidence for her point, but Charlie isn't really having any of it.
Quote #3
CHARLIE: Tenth grade, I'm sixteen years old, and for once, I bring home a report card, and it's almost all A's. I go to my old man, "Can I take the car out?" You know, take the guys out in the Buick, sort of a victory drive. He says, "No." I take it anyway, I steal the keys, I sneak it out.
SUSANNA: You took the car with no permission?
CHARLIE: Yes.
SUSANNA: Why? Why then?
CHARLIE: Because I— I deserved it. Nothing I did was good enough for this guy. Don't you understand that?
Whoo-boy. Charlie clearly felt pretty entitled as a kid—really, do good grades really mean that you "deserve" to drive a vintage car that doesn't actually belong to you? But we do feel for Charlie a little bit, too, since it sounds like he felt like he could never please his father, which is part of why he wanted some recognition in the form of car privileges.