I mean just this: They don't always shipwreck their own lives." Was that, Kenny would like to know, an essential of successful parenthood?
"I mean," he paraphrased dryly, "must you wreck your own life, John, to parent somebody else with skill ?" The wording of this rather pleased him.

He brightened visibly.
Whitaker ignored his brazen air of assurance.

It was like Kenny, he reflected, to find an unexpected loophole and emerge from it with the air of a conqueror.
"People with an over-plus of temperament," he said, "wreck the lives of others.

Brian has just stepped out in the nick of time." "You mean," flashed Kenny with anger in his eyes, "you mean I've tried to wreck the life of my own son?
By the powers of war, John, that's too much!" "I didn't say you had tried.

I mean merely that you were accidentally succeeding.