How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #4
The garden in a way was his father's escape from bills and success stories and the job at the store. It was his father's way of creating something. It was his father's way of being an artist. (9.9)
The ideal of self-sufficiency (and existing outside of the capitalist system of bills and success stories, if you want to get political) is like a little guy's paradise. The garden is a place where Joe's dad can be creative and independent; he isn't a slave to any system there. It's probably telling that Joe doesn't place much value on the garden. It doesn't really make any money, and it doesn't do anything to enhance his family's status, so at this point in Joe's life, it seems kind of meaningless.
Quote #5
It was hard to understand how his father could be such a big failure when you stopped to think about the thing. (9.15)
Here, Joe is thinking about how the way most of us measure success—by how much money a person has—doesn't really apply to the actual happiness and wealth Joe's dad made from his garden. Joe can't understand how his dad could have been such a good gardener and still been such a "failure" in out in the working world. He doesn't understand yet that how much people are paid to do a given job doesn't necessarily match up to the worth of that job and the effort required to do that job.
Quote #6
When armies begin to move and flags wave and slogans pop up watch out little guy because it's somebody else's chestnuts in the fire not yours. (10.12)
This is kind of an outdated phrase, unless you're still the chestnut-roasting type, but basically Joe's saying that the average person has nothing to gain by these big men's wars, and all the loud noise is to make the little guys think that this stuff has something to do with them.