How we cite our quotes: (Book.Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #1
In that optimistic, postwar America [...] everybody was the master of his own destiny. (1.1.35)
This isn't like being master of your own domain. Do you think Cal is being ironic here? How many people do you know whose lives have turned out exactly as they planned? Did your parents' lives turn out exactly as they thought they would?
Quote #2
She appeared at church that one day and never again, and seems to have existed for the sole purpose of changing my mother's mind. (1.1.73)
Cal is describing a girl his brother spilled hot coffee on. She could have changed their mother's mind in many ways: made her not want to have another boy, kept her from realizing how into her Father Mike still was, sent her to Dunkin Donuts on an emergency java dash… Who knows? Whatever happened, this was a small action that made huge ripples in the fates of many.
Quote #3
[Desdemona] didn't envision her insides as a vast computer code, all 1s and 0s, an infinity of sequences, any one of which might contain a bug. (1.2.84)
Even if Desdemona was thinking about DNA, she wouldn't even know what a computer was. Anachronism aside, this shows how much our DNA controls our lives. Are we pre-programmed for certain successes and failures because of our genes?