How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #7
It was all in the papers the next day, the catastrophic crash of the Whelk family fortune. Both of Whelk's girlfriends left him. Well, the second one was technically Czerny's, so perhaps that didn't count. The whole thing was all very public. The Virginia playboy, heir to the Whelk fortune, suddenly evicted from his Aglionby dorm, relieved of his social life, freed from any hope of his Ivy League future, watching his car being loaded onto a truck and his room emptied of speakers and furniture. (10.15)
Talk about a fall from grace: Whelk's family loses their money in a blink of an eye, and he's pretty traumatized by the whole thing. This doesn't excuse the whole killing-his-best-friend-incident, but it does show just how tied to his wealth Whelk was.
Quote #8
At the sight of Gansey's Aglionby sweater, Adam's father had charged out, firing on all cylinders. For weeks after that, Ronan had called Gansey "the S.R.F.," where the S stood for Soft, the R stood for Rich, and the F stood for something else. (12.2)
Adam's family (like much of Henrietta) isn't exactly fond of the kind of boys who go to Aglionby. In fact, Adam's dad can be incensed into a rage when he sees one of Adam's friends.
Quote #9
Adam had once told Gansey, Rags to riches isn't a story anyone wants to hear until after it's done. But it was a story that was hard to finish when Adam had missed school yet again. There was no happy ending without passing grades. (14.39)
To Adam, he won't ever be anything to anyone until he can prove that he's made his success for himself. That's why he won't accept Gansey's help: He wants to become a rags-to-riches story all by himself.