How we cite our quotes: (Part.Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #4
"You won't tattle, will you, Missouri? About what a liar I am."
She patted his arm gently. "Course not, honey. Come to think, I wish I had me a two-bit piece for every story I done told. Sides, you tell good lies, the kind I likes to hear." (1.2.95-96)
Good, old Zoo. Joel knows that he's a liar, that it's wrong, and that he could get into trouble for it. So at least he's honest. Wait…does that make sense? Anyway, what's really funny is that Zoo pardons his lies because they're entertaining. We can almost see a little bit of a writer like Truman Capote in Joel, entertaining people with made-up tales.
Quote #5
She was not coming, and it was all some crazy trick. (1.2.120)
Joel often feels like the butt of a bad joke when he's at Skully's Landing. And though he doesn't know it yet, he's right. Amy hasn't lied about coming back to the table; what she and Randolph have lied about, though, is his father's condition. Joel can sense the deception, but he doesn't know what it is yet.
Quote #6
Now here again he'd locked the door and thrown away the key: there was conspiracy abroad, even his father had a grudge against him, even God. Somewhere along the line he'd been played a mean trick. Only he didn't know who or what to blame. (1.3.15)
There's that confusion again. Now Joel lines up the traditional authority figures and shoots them down: God, his father. The pain of growing up, seeing that things aren't as one hoped they would be, can often seem like a dirty trick. And the worst part is, as Joel is learning, there's no one to blame for it.