How we cite our quotes: Chapter.Paragraph
Quote #4
Desi is a white knight type. He loves troubled women […]. My story would satisfy his craving for ruined women—I was now the most damaged of them all. (44.9, 18)
As a man, Desi is the anti-Nick. Rather than being afraid to show emotion, he probably shows too much of it as he fawns over the damaged women he rescues. Check out the way he acts toward Amy, for example—he gives her way more attention than is acceptable and scares her away. Of course, the fact that she chooses Desi to manipulate demonstrates his weakness as a person—Amy only plays games with people she can control.
Quote #5
"You are a man," I say. "You are an average, lazy, boring, cowardly, woman-fearing man. Without me, that's what you would have kept on being, ad nauseum. But I made you into something […] Without me, you're just your dad." (56.30)
Ouch. Even though we're pretty glad Nick and Amy are fictional characters and not our neighbors, we can still feel Nick's pain when Amy brings out the worst insult she can possibly give him: that he's like his dad. Amy knows too well the pain his father inflicted on him and the blame Nick gives him for the man he's become. And she's not afraid to use it.
Quote #6
I thought it would make me feel better to have the man vanished from the earth, but I actually felt a massive, frightening hollowness open up in my chest. I had spent my life comparing myself to my father, and now he was gone. (61.13)
Nick spends the entire book anxiously awaiting the loss of his abusive father, only to find himself filled with an emptiness he never expects. After basing his entire life on being as little like his father as possible, he's left with a hole in his own life regardless of their poor relationship.