Hate the dining-room ceiling, sure, but the entire house? There was no better house.
In his youth, Danny is like any child in that he is not particularly aware of any reality other than his own. He doesn't notice a lot of things around him, one specific example being that Sandy and Jocelyn are sisters. And what he does notice—in this case, the house—is filtered through his own subjectivity. He's lived his whole life there and has no negative memories of Elna leaving or Maeve getting sick. For him, the house is a palace, a playground, and a museum. It represents his father, his sister, and his childhood. He cannot comprehend how anyone would not like the house and see it as the majestic edifice it was. It will take a lot of growth in Danny to start to come to terms with who his mother was and why she did not like the house at all.
...the more we kept up with our hate, the more we were forever doomed to live out our lives in a parked car on VanHoebeek Street.
Danny and Maeve aren't stupid: they know that sitting in front of the Dutch House is not good for them. As Danny says, they're nourishing their hate: they're reminding themselves of what they had, what they lost, how terrible Andrea was, and how their father was taken away from them in more ways than one. This hate is consuming and it limits their ability to move forward. Both siblings know this but cannot act any differently at this time. Human nature leads us to continue to do things that are bad for us even when we know they are bad; in this sense, Danny and Maeve are relatable characters because most readers also have experienced something similar.
The Dutch House was impossible. I had never had that thought before.
As a child, Danny loved the Dutch House without reservation, but even though he continues to love it for a long time after he is kicked out, he has an epiphany on the day of his father's funeral: the Dutch House really is impossible. The meaning of this is hard to pin down precisely, but it seems that Danny has realized what his mother knew from the second she saw the house: it is too big, too imposing, too decorative, too heavy, and too rooted in the past to be the kind of thing in which one can truly live.
After so many years I thought less about his unwillingness to disclose and more about how stupid I'd been not to try harder.
This is a potent quote for anyone who has ever wished they'd tried harder to get to know someone in their life—which is, most likely, most of us. Danny knows his father isn't exactly the easiest man to understand. He's reserved and particular, someone who's been through a war and a wife leaving and worked his way up from being poor to being rich. He certainly isn't mean or selfish, but he is an enigma to Danny in many ways. As a child and young man, Danny wishes his father would reach out to him more; as an older and wiser man, he realizes that perhaps it was his job to try to connect with his father. He could have asked more questions, listened more, and reached out more. This is a subtle reminder to all readers never to take those they love for granted.
Oh, would that we had always lived in a world in which every man, woman, and child came equipped with a device for audio recording, still photography, and short films. I would have loved to have evidence more irrefutable than my own memory...
Patchett has a wonderful ability to allude to the universal even as she writes of one character's thoughts and experiences. Here, Danny is wishing he could "prove" that Celeste and Maeve initially liked each other, but he cannot because his memory is challenged by others'. He, like many of us, wishes there were some way to access the "truth" of what was actually said and done. It would be a neat and easy way to solve disputes in the future, as one could simply look up the incident or conversation in question. Unfortunately, that is not the way it works: we must consider our memories in light of others', recognizing that there may be slippages or disputes.
Boys at Columbia went to class and boys in Harlem went to war, a reality not suspended for a friendly Saturday pick-up game.
In this simple quote, Patchett illuminates the reality of racial and class differences in America in the 1970s. Harlem was a predominately black, lower-socio-economic neighborhood. Its young men were less likely to go to college on account of college's cost, and thus they could not procure a deferment from the draft. According to the American War Library, 14% of the casualties in Vietnam were black men, yet they made up only 11% of the population. By contrast, young white men were more likely to be enrolled in college and thus avoid the draft. Columbia University is located near Harlem, which presents a striking, side-by-side comparison of what white men and black men's likely experiences were.
Halfway through college, I had come to see I was a great deal like my father.
The similarities between Cyril and Danny take a bit of time to manifest themselves, but they're impossible to ignore once acknowledged. Danny feels at home on building sites, just as his father does. He pursues that career and seems to derive more pleasure in that than in his family. He can be selfish and short-sighted, as when he buys Celeste a brownstone without consulting her—just as Cyril did with Elna and the Dutch House. He ultimately does what he wants even though he is accountable to a family as Cyril was. He thinks he knows best for others, which is sometimes not true at all. They share positive characteristics as well, such as being hard-working, diligent, aware of obligations, and generally optimistic.
They were disasters. They were mine.
Danny has been a good brother, alleviating Maeve's concerns and satiating her desire for revenge against Andrea by going to medical school and spending almost all the trust's money. However, he has never liked this path and chafes at it, wishing he could get into real estate. When he finally jumps into it, he feels at ease and truly himself for once. As this quote expresses, Danny did this all himself. It was his choices, his investments, his risks, and his fortitude that made this possible—not the trust, nor Maeve, nor his father, nor anyone else. Danny rightly feels an immense sense of pride even though these buildings are "disasters."
"Our father was a man who had never met his own wife."
This is a blunt and perspicacious quote from Maeve, uttered after she tells Danny the story of Elna's disastrous first visit to the Dutch House. Elna was a woman used to being poor and frugal, a woman who wanted to be a nun, and a woman who clearly wanted to live a simple life. Now, she is the proprietress of a massive, grand home, and she has a servant of her very own—all things that seem anathema to her character. Cyril seems utterly flummoxed at her antipathy toward this new life, but, as far as we can tell, he does nothing to ameliorate her concerns. Unfortunately, Danny mirrors his father to a degree when it comes to his own wife, as evidenced in his buying Celeste a brownstone without consulting her first and without asking if she likes it (she doesn't).
I put it off not because I thought it would harm Maeve's health, but because we were better off without her.
In most respects, Danny is a good and loving brother to Maeve. He looks out for her and tries to do what is right for her, supporting her and going along with her wishes even when they are not what he would prefer. However, this quote exemplifies Danny's tendency to make decisions for other people based on what he thinks is best. He doesn't allow Maeve to make up her own mind about letting Elna back in her life. He doesn't stop to consider that Maeve desperately wants a mother, and his own ambivalence about Elna is not a universal sentiment. Perhaps if Danny had not been so short-sighted here, Maeve would have had more time to spend with her mother.
