How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Section.Paragraph)
Quote #7
"Don't you dare take the lazy way. It's too easy to excuse yourself because of your ancestry. Don't let me catch you doing it! Now—look close at me so you will remember. Whatever you do, it will be you who do it—not your mother." (38.3.52)
It seems to us that while Adam and Aron get away with behaving like little babies, Cal gets chastised by Lee for being a little (reasonably) worried that he might be like his mother. But maybe it's because Lee senses that he has an actual chance to not be like her, whereas Adam and Aron are pretty much stuck the way they are. So with great choices comes great responsibility—or something like that.
Quote #8
"They looked at me and thought they knew about me. And I fooled them. I fooled every one of them. And when they thought they could tell me what to do—oh! that's when I fooled them best." (39.2.90)
Kate is all about freedom—at least, her own freedom (it's other people she likes to enslave). It's when people try to tell her what to do that she really gets nasty. Just look at her parents, or Adam, or Faye. But the thing is, she goes along with other people's wishes and plans just so that she can gain even more control. It's like a game for Kate: let someone think that they are the one in control, and then—bam—show them otherwise.
Quote #9
"Well, suppose there's a slight doubt that the boy should be in the army and we send him and he gets killed."
"I see. Is it responsibility or blame that bothers you?"
"I don't want blame."
"Sometimes responsibility is worse. It doesn't carry any pleasant egotism." (47.2.8-11)
Speaking of responsibility, it's not fun—it means that when things go awry it's your fault. For Adam on the Draft Board, things going awry means people dying, so responsibility just got really serious really quickly. Choice might sound all well and good in theory—after all, who doesn't want to decide between deep dish and thin crust—but that means that wrong choices or bad choices or just unlucky choices are totally plausible. That is what Lee means when he distinguishes between responsibility and blame. Blame is something that other people place; responsibility is holding yourself accountable.