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Jonathan Alkaitis
Paul is Vincent’s half-brother. They have the same father, but Vincent was the result of an affair Paul’s father had with Vincent’s mother, a younger, bohemian hippie, when Paul was young. Paul is resentful toward Vincent and her mother for breaking up his parents’ marriage and takes out these frustrations on Vincent, though he partially acknowledges that this is unfair of him to do. Paul aspires to be a composer and eventually achieves some success when he steals Vincent’s abandoned video footage from her childhood room, passing off the videos as his own and using them as background footage for his electronic compositions. Vincent discovers Paul’s transgression and entertains the notion of suing Paul but doesn’t think Jonathan will want to be involved in a scandal. Paul struggles with drug addiction throughout his life and undergoes multiple stays in rehab. In 1999, when Paul is an undergraduate college student, he gives bad ecstasy to Charlie Wu, a member of the Canadian electronic band, Baltica, which results in Charlie’s death. Paul is wracked with guilt over Charlie’s death and often thinks he sees Charlie’s ghost. His inability to write music that doesn’t sound like Baltica serves as further evidence of Paul’s guilt. Paul flees Toronto to avoid facing legal consequences over Charlie’s death, and he travels to Vancouver to be with Vincent, whom he hasn’t seen since Vincent’s mother’s death. Vincent eventually gets Paul a job at the Hotel Caiette. In 2005, only a few months into Paul’s time there, he’s approached by Ella Kaspersky and bribed into writing a threatening message for Jonathan Alkaitis on the hotel lobby’s glass wall, and he’s fired as a result. The message greatly upsets Vincent, something Paul never thought of before he agreed to write the message. In general, Paul has a difficult time understanding what is expected of him and how he should treat people. Paul eventually admits himself to a rehab facility in Utah where he unpacks his many past demons with a counselor. Paul and Vincent never repair their relationship during Vincent’s lifetime, but her ghost visits Paul while he’s in Utah, and they both apologize for being “thieves” at different points in their lives.
Paul Quotes in The Glass Hotel
The The Glass Hotel quotes below are all either spoken by Paul or refer to Paul. 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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Chapter 2: I Always Come to You
Quotes
But does a person have to be either admirable or awful? Does life have to be so binary? Two things can be true at the same time, he told himself. Just because you used your stepmother's presumed death to start over doesn’t mean that you're not also doing something good, being there for your sister or whatever.
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I don’t hate Vincent, he told himself, Vincent has never been the problem, I have never hated Vincent, I have only ever hated the idea of Vincent.
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It was a new century. If he could survive the ghost of Charlie Wu, he could survive anything. It had rained at some point in the night and the sidewalks were gleaming, water reflecting the morning’s first light.
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Chapter 9: A Fairy Tale
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“The thing with Paul,” her mother said, while they were waiting for the water taxi on the pier at Grace Harbour, “is he’s always seemed to think that you owe him something.” Vincent remembered looking up at her mother, startled by the idea. “You don’t,” her mother said. “Nothing that happened to him is your fault.”
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Chapter 10: The Office Chorus
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“It’s possible to both know and not know something.”
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Chapter 15: The Hotel
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It turned out that never having that conversation with Vincent meant he was somehow condemned to always have that conversation with Vincent.
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There are so many ways to haunt a person, or a life.
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Chapter 16: Vincent in the Ocean
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“I’m sorry,” he says. “I’m sorry for all of it.,”
“I was a thief too,” I tell him, “we both got corrupted.”
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Paul Quotes in The Glass Hotel
The The Glass Hotel quotes below are all either spoken by Paul or refer to Paul. 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 2: I Always Come to You
Quotes
But does a person have to be either admirable or awful? Does life have to be so binary? Two things can be true at the same time, he told himself. Just because you used your stepmother's presumed death to start over doesn’t mean that you're not also doing something good, being there for your sister or whatever.
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I don’t hate Vincent, he told himself, Vincent has never been the problem, I have never hated Vincent, I have only ever hated the idea of Vincent.
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It was a new century. If he could survive the ghost of Charlie Wu, he could survive anything. It had rained at some point in the night and the sidewalks were gleaming, water reflecting the morning’s first light.
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Chapter 9: A Fairy Tale
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“The thing with Paul,” her mother said, while they were waiting for the water taxi on the pier at Grace Harbour, “is he’s always seemed to think that you owe him something.” Vincent remembered looking up at her mother, startled by the idea. “You don’t,” her mother said. “Nothing that happened to him is your fault.”
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Chapter 10: The Office Chorus
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“It’s possible to both know and not know something.”
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Chapter 15: The Hotel
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It turned out that never having that conversation with Vincent meant he was somehow condemned to always have that conversation with Vincent.
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There are so many ways to haunt a person, or a life.
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Chapter 16: Vincent in the Ocean
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“I’m sorry,” he says. “I’m sorry for all of it.,”
“I was a thief too,” I tell him, “we both got corrupted.”
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