How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph.Page)
Quote #7
I guess I'd realized that they lied from time to time. And that my mom took pills, had been hooked on morphine when I was younger. And so I lorded it over them. I was the perfected version of them, I thought. Makes you think of Hitler Youth or the Khmer Rouge, right? The children, full of themselves and their purity, shooting the adults in the rice paddies. (XV.68.112)
Alan knows that he has to explain parental failure to Kit so that she doesn't chuck both her dad and mom out of her life. But perhaps the comparison to Hitler Youth or the Khmer Rouge is a tad much. Still, he makes a good point: children find it easy to blame their parents because they haven't had the chance to make mistakes. Yet. Alan shares his own experience at the blame game with Kit in the hope that he won't be the first parent in her crosshairs.
Quote #8
God, the whole thing was underhanded and it was cowardly and lacking in all principle. It was dishonor. And at Ground Zero. Alan was pacing, his hands in fists. The dishonor! At Ground Zero! Amid the ashes! (XVII.78.136)
When Alan's friend Terry tells him that the contract for the blast resistant glass at Freedom Tower was given to a Chinese firm, it's more than just a drag for the American companies that lost the bid. It's national shame.
Still, we don't know who to blame for this action: the government, for not choosing an American company? The American company for selling its patent to the Chinese? Eggers does a good job here of showing how complex economic reality is, even when messy emotions like nationalism creep in.
Quote #9
And I was gone all the time. I was already on to Taiwan and China. I missed a few years there. I didn't want to be in Taiwan, did I? But everyone else was. I missed a few of your important years there and I regret that. (XXIII.49.201)
Alan's in confession mode, pouring his heart out to Kit through drunken letters. It's clear that he feels guilty that work—work that ultimately destroyed him and so many others—took him away from her side. It's not an uncommon regret for working parents. But for Alan, the gamble didn't pay off: he missed her childhood and he still can't provide for her future.