“A lot of people thought Sam Gordon was crazy, but few people knew him well. […] Later in the year, when his troubles would begin, no one would know the real story. The rumors that filled the halls were only guesswork.”

The foreshadowing at the beginning of the novel is designed to inspire the same guesswork in the reader that the school engages in. Because Sam doesn’t explain to Laura until late in the novel the reasons for his investigation and dismissal, the reader is challenged along with Laura to try to determine what Sam could have done to merit suspicion.

“Seeing such romance next to all of these dead men in black-and-white was like watching someone flirt at a funeral.”

Laura’s sense that the It’s A Wonderful Life poster is incongruous with the economists in Sam’s classroom parallels her attitude toward Sam’s economic and political views. Not until later in the novel, when the romance between them has begun to blossom, does she start to see how the economics can be as colorful as the classic film.

“Not only is there is less delight in a world of little danger, but there is less humanity when we are always being treated like children.”

This is the first instance of Sam linking an element of humanity specifically to economic theory. His anecdote about his father and the relationship between danger and delight links the inherent humanity with the dignity of adulthood as related to individual assessment and acceptance of risk.