How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #1
"Well, old people get abandoned every single day! Left on park benches! In railway stations! Without even a label around their neck to tell people who they are!" (3.45)
Hmm… Can you think of another character in this book who wears a label around her neck telling people who she is? Try Lucy, the abandoned teen mom panhandling on the train. It's interesting how a judgment Lily makes about "old people" actually ends up being true for a character her own age.
Quote #2
"How old are you now, Lon? Twenty-one?"
"Twenty-two."
"Twenty-two, eh? When I was your age, I'd been pounding a copper's beat for four bloody years." (7.35-37)
You've probably heard this one from your own grandparents before—it usually takes the form of walking uphill both ways to school in the snow with no shoes. Stan's definitely one of those old dudes who thinks times were way better when he was young, and in this case, he's essentially saying twenty-two-year-olds in "his day" had better work ethic than guys Lonnie's age today.
Quote #3
"Pop had a mum?" It was something Lily could imagine only with the greatest difficulty, because it meant thinking of Pop as a little boy, and that was really hard to do. All she could manage was a shorter Pop, still red-face and piggy-eyed, the kind of little kid who threw stones at girls and other people who weren't exactly like him. (11.10)
Biologically speaking, Pop had to have a mum, but we get where Lily's coming from; Stan's one of those guys who's so serious that it's tough to even imagine him having a childhood, let alone a mom. Still, it puts life in perspective to think that the elderly today once had teenage years and childhoods just like us.