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Hope Jahren
Bill is Hope Jahren’s lab partner and closest friend. The two met when Bill was an undergraduate at the University of California, Berkeley, and Jahren was a graduate student, assisting on a field trip through the Central Valley of California. Bill is a loner, and Jahren would consistently find him on the fringes of the group of students, conducting fieldwork on his own. The smartest student in the class and a tireless worker, Bill was soon hired to work in the lab with Jahren, where they quickly developed an excellent working relationship. Despite their closeness, however, Jahren notes that Bill remained something of a mystery to her for a long time: she did not know where he lived, for example, and when he made vague comments about his childhood, she was left to wonder. Later on, Jahren would meet Bill’s father, an Armenian filmmaker who produced documentaries about the genocide in his homeland, and would learn that a childhood injury to Bill’s hand—resulting in the loss of a finger—left him feeling like an outsider throughout his adolescence. Bill did not attend his senior prom, and somehow Jahren convinced him to dance for the very first time on a remote island in the Arctic, where they were working on a research project. Bill and Jahren trusted each other implicitly, and Jahren mentions that she was amazed at the depth of his loyalty to her. When she got her first position after graduate school, Bill moved to Atlanta with her, sleeping in his van or in the lab at night because he could not afford a place to stay. He moved with her to Baltimore, to work at Johns Hopkins, and again to Hawaii. Although Bill was initially uncomfortable with Clint, they became fast friends, and Bill, Clint, and Jahren functioned as a happy, albeit nontraditional, family unit.
Bill Quotes in Lab Girl
The Lab Girl quotes below are all either spoken by Bill or refer to Bill. 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:
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Part 1: Roots and Leaves
Quotes
“Hey, you guys! Want a cold one?”
“No, I don’t. That stuff you are drinking tastes like piss.”
“Well, I don’t really like beer, but that stuff does seem pretty awful.”
“Jean Genet wouldn’t have even stolen that shit.”
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For all the time that we spent together, Bill had mostly remained a mystery to me. I had been around him enough to know that he didn’t do drugs, skip class, or litter on the street—incongruously enough, considering his disaffected comportment—but I didn’t know anything beyond that.
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Part 2: Wood and Knots
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Thus splitters and lumpers are both productive only when forced into bickering collaboration, and though together they produce great maps, they rarely return from field trips on speaking terms.
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Part 3: Flowers and Fruit
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Look at those guys. I’m going to do this job for thirty more years, work as hard as any of them, accomplish just as much or more, and not one of them will ever look me straight in the eye like I belong here.
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“C’mon, Bill, you’re with us now. Why don’t you drive?”
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Bill Quotes in Lab Girl
The Lab Girl quotes below are all either spoken by Bill or refer to Bill. 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:
).
Part 1: Roots and Leaves
Quotes
“Hey, you guys! Want a cold one?”
“No, I don’t. That stuff you are drinking tastes like piss.”
“Well, I don’t really like beer, but that stuff does seem pretty awful.”
“Jean Genet wouldn’t have even stolen that shit.”
Related Characters:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
For all the time that we spent together, Bill had mostly remained a mystery to me. I had been around him enough to know that he didn’t do drugs, skip class, or litter on the street—incongruously enough, considering his disaffected comportment—but I didn’t know anything beyond that.
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Part 2: Wood and Knots
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Thus splitters and lumpers are both productive only when forced into bickering collaboration, and though together they produce great maps, they rarely return from field trips on speaking terms.
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Part 3: Flowers and Fruit
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Look at those guys. I’m going to do this job for thirty more years, work as hard as any of them, accomplish just as much or more, and not one of them will ever look me straight in the eye like I belong here.
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“C’mon, Bill, you’re with us now. Why don’t you drive?”
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