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'Mrs. Bolger did not get up. I could see that she was still feeling the wrong of what we had done, though I did not feel it myself.' (p.204)

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"We'll get you out of there, one way or the other"

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"They foresaw a lot of problems... but they still wanted to help" - pg 117

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"He would hold no grudges as long as my mother walked the line" (2.19)

"I thought Roy was what a man should be." (2.23)

"Roy's strangeness and the strangeness of our life with him had, over the years, become ordinary to me." (1.14)

‘My mother didn’t tell me what went on between her and Roy, the threats and occasional brutality with which he held her in place.’(pp. 11-12)

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Mr. Howard promises to "give [Jack] a good report" and it is because of the praising letter he writes that Jack is "awarded a scholarship to the Hill School".

'I could see that he admired [Mrs. Howard] and expected me to admire her too. There was an air of partnership about them that I felt warmed by.' (p.227)

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"To accept Father Karl's hope of redemption I would have to give up my own. He believed in God, and I believed in the world." - Jack, pg.210

"I had left a dummy in my place to look sorry and make promises...and Father Karl knew it." - Jack, pg.211

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"She didn't want to get married, not really.'

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"No bike, a boy with no bike?" -pg 43
"What about the Raleigh?" - pg 46
"She was gasping as if she had been held underwater." - pg 46

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"I saw an anxious women of about my mother's age who wanted to help me without knowing what kind of help i needed" (Pg: 16)

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"Jesus! I trade some old piece of crap rifle for a valuable hunting dog and what do you do? Piss and moan, piss and moan." p.142

"'Look again,' he said, and pushed the open neck of the jar  against my eye... he grabbed my hair and shoved my face back down toward the jar." p.170

"Dwight had hit me." p.171

"I felt a surge of pride and connection...to Dwight...I could feel his exaltation at the blow I'd struck, feel his own pride in it, see him smiling down at me with recognition, and pleasure, and something like love." p.1

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I shouldn't be afraid of disappointing him or letting him down in any way.

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"(Uncle Stephen) expressed his shock and sympathy at the wretchedness of our condition, but explained that he wasn't able to launch a rescue operation on the scale of the one I proposed."

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"I feared her disapproval, but even more than that i feared her incomprehension, even her amusement, at what she could not possibly understand." - pg 23

"I saw an anxious woman of about my mother's age who wanted to help me without knowing what kind of help I needed. Her good will worked strongly on me." - pg 16

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'I thought Roy was what a man should be.' pg 12

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'Mr. Bolger had the idea that a good dose of trust would rouse us [jack and Chuck] to some adult conception of ourselves. It should have. It didn't.' (p.199)

'Mr. Bolger was careful never to pressure me, but I understood that he was a fisher of men and that I was fair game...The danger wasn't that he would force me into anything but that I would force myself in order to get on his good side....I had the feeling he could see into me. He treated me with courtesy, though without affection; always he seemed to be holding something back. I wanted him to think well of him.' (p.200)

'We both admitted we'd been drinking. Mr. Bolger nodded, and I understand that this was in our favour, so great was his faith in the power of alcohol to transform a person....That left Mr. Bolger free to make our excuses for us.' (pp.203-4)

'Mr. Bolger lost interest in me then. I saw it in is eyes. He told me that he and Mrs. Bolger had hoped I would be happy with them, happier than I'd apparently been with my stepfather, but it didn't seem as if I was. All in all, he saw no point in my staying on.' (p.208)

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Daddy's abusive nature helped give an understanding to Rosemary, around the effect of using physical punishment. "Daddy spanked her almost every night." Her own experiences prevent her from disciplining Jack.

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'(My mother came to hate [the Nash Rambler] so much that not long after we got to Utah she gave it away to a woman she met in a cafeteria.)' (p.4)

'My mother just knew she'd get a job out of him. It was as good as guaranteed.' (p.6)

'My mother didn't tell me what went on between her and Roy, the threats and occasional brutality with which he held her in place.' (pp.11-12)

'She made the world seem friendly.' (p.82)

"Daddy left some marks on her...almost paralysis with men of the tyrant breed."

'I rocked and murmured to her. I was practiced at this and happy doing it, not because she was unhappy but because she needed me, and to be needed made me feel capable. Soothing her soothed me....In the morning we were shy with each other. I somehow managed not to ask my question. that night I continued to master myself, but my self-mastery seemed like an act; I knew I was too weak to keep it up..."Mom? / What about the Raleigh?"'' (p.46)

'I was my mother's son. I could not be anyone else's.' (p.118)

'I was sure she wanted me to stay with her...later she agreed that this was so...but she may also have dreamed of flight and freedom - unencumbered, solitary freedom, freedom even from me. Like anyone else, she must have wanted different things at the same time. The human heart is a dark forest.' (pp.118-19)

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'My friends were Terry Taylor and Terry Silver. All three of us lived with our mothers.'

'[Mrs. Taylor] sat in her living room all day long and chain-smoked cigarettes and stared out of the picture window with an air of unutterable sadness, as if she knew things beyond mortal bearing.' (p.32)

'Silver's mother worked all day at Boeing. That meant we had the apartment to ourselves for hours at a stretch.' (p.34)

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'Mr. Mitchell had started the smokers some years back...They had become big business. The ticket cost three dollars and sold out in a matter of days...[the students] wanted to see blood. They wanted to see pain. Mr. Mitchell gave it to them.' (p.182)

'He matched up the hardest cases he could find, and he did not trouble himself overmuch with questions of height and weight. A mismatch could be just as much fun as an even match.' (p.182)

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'As a boy, I found no fault in my father. I made him out of dreams and memories.’ (p.102)

'[My father] had the advantage always enjoyed by the inconstant parent, of not being there to be found imperfect. I could see him as I wanted to see him.' (p.101)

'He was no monster - he'd had troubles of his own. Anyway, only crybabies groused about their parents.' (p.101)

'I felt a shadow, a coldness at the edges...It was about my father, ten years dead by then. It was grief and rage, mostly rage, and for days I shook with it when I wasn't shaking with joy for my son, and for the new life I had been given.' (pp.101-2)

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Explore the influence of adults on children across the memoir.

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Explore the influence of adults on children across the memoir.

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What role do these adults play in the lives of young people?
Which themes are explored through these characters?
How are young people shaped/affected by these relationships and experiences?