How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #7
We hadn't given up hope. It was just a different kind of hope, for different sorts of things. We hoped that everything would somehow sort of maybe turn out not too bad. (13.47)
Despite the challenges of having a baby at sixteen, Sam and Alicia still hope for the future. They don't want to flush their lives down the toilet just because they made one decision. Nobody says it will be easy, but the fact that they hope for something more is promising to both of them.
Quote #8
But the thing was, we still had to do something about the future, because that's how you spend half your time when you're sixteen, isn't it? People—schools and colleges and teachers and parents—want to know what you're planning to do, what you want, and you can't tell them that what you want is for everything to be OK. (13.48)
In a time when everybody is asking about his future, Sam is making more concrete plans for his than he even knows. Sleeping with Alicia seals his fate in a way that none of his friends have. It's telling that everyone asks sixteen year olds about their futures, but no one really expects things to turn out the way they plan.
Quote #9
But like I said before: if you don't know how something feels, then you don't know anything. The future looked terrible when I went there before. But once I was on the inside of it, it really wasn't so bad. (16.24)
It's interesting how Sam's perspective changes as the book goes on. Sure, he might be maturing, but we like to think that he's learning from his experiences, too. He starts to think about how disappointed he was with the future when he first visited it. Now that he's living it, he discovers it's not so bad.