"He already had a perfectly good car, he insisted: a beloved 1982 Datsun B210, slightly dented but mechanically sound, with 128,000 miles on the odometer. “I can’t believe they’d try and buy me a car,” he later complained in a letter to Carine, or that they think I’d actually let them pay for my law school if I was going to go… I’ve told them a million times that I have the best car in the world, a car that has spanned the continent from Miami to Alaska, a car that has in all those thousands of miles not given me a single problem, a car that I will never trade in, a car that I am very strongly attached to-yet they ignore what I say and think I’d actually accept a new car from them! I’m going to have to be real careful not to accept any gifts from them in the future because they will think they have bought my respect. (21)"

• He believes that the material things are unnecessary if you have what you need. He also thought that you should work for the things that you want or need not just have them handed to you. This quote shows that because he didn't want the car because it was being given to him and he already had one that worked.