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QUOTES!!!!


 * My Sisters Keeper**

pg. 14: "When Jesse turned sixteen he moved into the attic over the garage . . . since he didn't wants my parents to see what he was doing and my parents didn't really want to see . . . Blocking the stars . . . Sometimes I think Jesse sets up these obstacles himself, just to make getting to him more of a challenge . . . Don't get me wrong -- it isn't that my parents don't care about Jesse or whatever trouble he's gotten himself mixed up in. It's just they don't really have time to care about it, because it's a problem somewhere lower on the totem pole."

I think this quote clearly shows how much Kate’s illness overrules the Fitzgerald’s lives. Sara and Brian (mostly Sara) take control in a way that she focuses so much on Kate that it affects everyone else and despite what the kids do, it’s still not as important as Kate’s health. This shows a big issue on how the Fitzgerald’s work with each other as a family and the warning signs that the parents should be looking out for. I also think Jesse purposely does stuff for his parents affection, for example the quote “Sometimes I think Jesse sets up these obstacles himself, just to make getting to him more of a challenge” (Picoult 14). This quote specifically really shows that Jesse is seeking for some type of attention; he’s just not receiving it due to the actions of his parents.

pg. 21: "'No one can make you donate an organ if you don't want to.' 'Oh Really?' She leans forward, counting off on her fingers. 'The first time I gave something to my sister, it was cord blood, and I was a newborn. She has leukemia -- APL -- and my cells put her into remission. The next time she relapsed, I was five and I had lymphocytes drawn from me, three times over, because the doctors never seemed to get enough of them the first time around. When that stopped working, they took bone marrow for a transplant. When Kate got infections, I had to donate granulocytes. When she relapsed again, I had to donate peripheral blood stem cells.' This girl's medical vocabulary would put some of my paid experts to shame. . . 'Obviously, you've agreed to be a donor for your sister before.' . . . 'No one ever asked'"

In this moment, the reader can really feel the sense of tension coming from Anna as she explains that nothing in her life was made by her decision, it was always predetermined for her. This is also the first time you can really see how young she began to donate and how it became into what it is currently (currently in the sense of the novel her present day). The only thing I think Anna has to realize is that, even though she does not like the situation she’s in, or how she was treated as an infant, it’s a fact that if it weren’t for her being there just for Kate to donate, she wouldn’t be on the earth, which in my opinion even though I wouldn’t like being put in that situation, what can you expect? Of course since she was there for the purpose of donating, the doctors are going to use what they can from her as an infant which is a sole fact whether she likes it or not.


 * The Sea and Poison **

pg. 20-21. "'Mmm. . . but still . . . the way he put the needle in. You don't find that in a country doctor, you see. I wonder what he's doing living in a place like this.'" Suguro is described as cold but superemly competent. Which quality is more important as a medical professional? Why is the author setting up this contrast early in this book? Why would Suguro choose this remote locale to set up his practice?

I think the most important quality in a doctor is that he/she should be competent; however I do believe they should be warm and welcoming. If it came down to choosing which one has a higher importance over the other, I’d automatically choose competence. If I was in the unnamed characters shoes receiving a needle into my lung I would want the doctor to know what their doing and to not make a mistake. I think this contrast is to mainly express the options between comfort and experience, seeing that the unnamed character was used to a comforting doctor, while Suguro had a cold feeling to him, but his experience and work was done precisely. The remote location in the novel I think is Suguros way from running away from his guilt and the actions he’s done while at the college. The location he’s in now, nobody really knows him, or knows what he did giving him a fresh start.

pg. 23. "'I'll bet the wife's run out on him,' the gas station owner was speculating in the bathhouse. 'Anyway, they say he's got himself another nurse.' 'A funny sort of fellow.' 'Yes, he's funny, but that's all right with me. My kid got sick last year. He examined him and he hasn't asked for his fee yet."

I think the reason Suguro takes care of these people and does not ask for anything in return is because I think Suguro is trying to repay back the black feelings in his heart for destroying life rather than trying to maintain it. Back in the vivisections, he allowed these doctors to use their knowledge to hurt prisoners of war, and considering Suguro had a conscience he knew very well that life should be kept protected. Since he allowed the surgery’s to continue I think he’s helping other people out to try to make up for the things he has done (or let go on without stopping it).

" . . . the patients make themselves inconspicuous as possible . . . the patient . . . would cringe before the great ones as though awaiting a sentence of condemnation. They would try desperately to conceal it if their fever had gone up or their coughs grown more severe. They would sit . . . hoping to escape the scrutiny of these awesome doctors as quickly as possible."

Obviously, the relationship between doctor and patient is not what we’d expect nowadays because in a hospital, a patient tries to get a doctor as soon as possible and tries to honestly get better (well at least that’s what I do) I think this quote is trying to show the fear the patients have for the doctors and the pain they are willing to suffer through with to try to get the doctors approval such as ‘look you do make me feel better’ and ‘I’m fine, I don’t need anything’. Honestly, when I look at this quote, I feel morally, the situation is wrong, the doctor should not have the patients fear them, but the Old Man places them in that state of fear anyways.