Of course, this is rather a subjective question, as what
may strike me as being important may not be the same for you, but here goes anyway. I
will supply page numbers, but bear in mind your edition of this classic might be
slightly different from mine, so the page numbers may not
correlate.
The first quote I think of as being important is
Walt's reflection on his son and his excellence:
"Chris was good at almost everything he tried,"
Walt reflects, "which made him supremely overconfident. If you attempted to talk him out
of something, he wouldn't argue. He'd just nod politely and then do exactly what he
wanted."
This is interesting
in terms of helping us to understand why so many people failed in trying to counsel
Chris to be more cautious and why Chris himself insisted on going to Alaska
anyway.
I think another revelation about Chris's character
is given to us by the author who points towards the darker side of his
personality:
Many aspects of Chris's personality baffled his
parents. He could be generous and caring to a fault, but he had a darker side as well,
characterised by monomania, impatience, and unwavering self-absorption, qualities that
seemed to intensify through his college
years.
This points towards
the more selfish, darker aspects of Chris's character that indicate the way that he was
able to shun people and civilisation and act in rather selfish ways, foreshadowing his
retreat from society.
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