Previous
Sam Pickles
Dolly is Sam’s wife and the mother of Rose, Ted, and Chub. She’s an alcoholic who constantly struggles with the pain of her past and her longing to travel and experience a more exciting lifestyle. As the years go by, she feels more and more strongly that her best days are behind her, and the onset of her old age drives her to drink more than ever. Her relationship with Sam becomes more strained after he loses his hand, and she often dates other men despite still loving him. Her daughter Rose despises her for drinking and robbing her of her childhood, as a young Rose would often have to carry her drunken mother back home from bars and pubs. Dolly grows to resent Rose as well, but the two of them eventually come to an understanding after Dolly reveals that she comes from an incestuous relationship that brought about her distrust of other women (her sister is also her mother). Dolly’s behavior becomes much less extreme after making peace with Rose, though she still drinks often and keeps her coarse and bitter sense of humor, which she mostly uses to entertain herself. Although Dolly resents Oriel for making her feel like an inadequate mother in comparison for most of the novel, she gradually comes to embrace Oriel and the rest of the Lamb family, confirming Rose’s belief that people can change. Dolly is a tragic figure, but she is often comical as well.
Dolly Pickles Quotes in Cloudstreet
The Cloudstreet quotes below are all either spoken by Dolly Pickles or refer to Dolly Pickles. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Chapter 3
Quotes
It’s just them in this vast indoors and though there’s a war on and people are coming home with bits of them removed, and though families are still getting telegrams and waiting by the wireless, women walking buggered and beatenlooking with infants in the parks, the Pickleses can’t help but feel that all that is incidental. They have no money and this great continent of a house doesn’t belong to them. They’re lost.
Related Characters:
Related Symbols:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 5
Quotes
Rose. People are… who they are.
Then they should change! People should do things for themselves, not wait for everyone else to change things for em!
You can’t beat your luck, love.
No, you have to be your luck. There’s nothin else, there’s just you.
Chapter 10
Quotes
Rose remembered the way she took command of a situation in a dozen crises—when Dolly was sick, when she herself was hurt, and she couldn’t think why the very strength of that woman’s actions felt so unforgivable. Her kindness was scalding, her protection acidic. Maybe it’s just me, thought Rose, maybe I can’t take it from her because my mother never gave it to me. What a proud bitch I am. But dammit, why does she always have to be right and the one who’s strong and the one who makes it straight, the one people come to? Why do I still dislike her, because she’s so totally trustworthy?
Related Characters:
Related Symbols:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Get the entire Cloudstreet LitChart as a printable PDF.
Dolly Pickles Quotes in Cloudstreet
The Cloudstreet quotes below are all either spoken by Dolly Pickles or refer to Dolly Pickles. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Chapter 3
Quotes
It’s just them in this vast indoors and though there’s a war on and people are coming home with bits of them removed, and though families are still getting telegrams and waiting by the wireless, women walking buggered and beatenlooking with infants in the parks, the Pickleses can’t help but feel that all that is incidental. They have no money and this great continent of a house doesn’t belong to them. They’re lost.
Related Characters:
Related Symbols:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 5
Quotes
Rose. People are… who they are.
Then they should change! People should do things for themselves, not wait for everyone else to change things for em!
You can’t beat your luck, love.
No, you have to be your luck. There’s nothin else, there’s just you.
Chapter 10
Quotes
Rose remembered the way she took command of a situation in a dozen crises—when Dolly was sick, when she herself was hurt, and she couldn’t think why the very strength of that woman’s actions felt so unforgivable. Her kindness was scalding, her protection acidic. Maybe it’s just me, thought Rose, maybe I can’t take it from her because my mother never gave it to me. What a proud bitch I am. But dammit, why does she always have to be right and the one who’s strong and the one who makes it straight, the one people come to? Why do I still dislike her, because she’s so totally trustworthy?
Related Characters:
Related Symbols:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
