How we cite our quotes: Citations follow this format: (Paragraph)
Quote #7
It makes you feel – in control. Sometimes you've got to have that feeling. (195)
Having to grow up in an environment in which he has no control over anything (his future, where he'll live, what he'll do for a living) is a pretty debilitating feeling for Sonny. By making the decision to do drugs, he gains a momentary sense that he's controlling his own destiny.
Quote #8
"It's not so much to play. It's to stand it, to be able to make it at all. On any level." He frowned and smiled: "In order to keep from shaking to pieces." (201)
Sonny doesn't want his brother to think that being a jazz musician is what causes him to turn to drugs. He's trying to make him see that at some point drugs help him just get through the day, to survive another 24 hours.
Quote #9
Some guys, you can tell from the way they play, they on something all the time. And you can see that, well, it makes something real for them. (203)
Sonny is trying to make it clear that different people do drugs for different reasons. For some of the musicians he knows, drugs are a way to stake a place in the world, to keep them rooted in reality. It's almost as though their suffering is so great that the world doesn't seem real. They have to do drugs to feel like they're a part of something that actually exists.