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"You got to take the crookeds with the straights. That's what Papa used to say."
In the last scene of the play, Act Two, Scene Five, Lyons recalls to Cory this statement that Troy used to say. When Lyons says the phrase, he sees his own life from a similar perspective that Troy saw in his own life. It is the first time in the play that Lyons sees eye to eye with Troy. This is a melancholy moment. With this line, Lyons recognizes that though he decidedly took a different approach to life than Troy, Lyons could not fulfill his own dreams or hold onto what meant the most to him—just like Troy. This phrase means that in life you have to accept misfortune just as much as you accept good fortune. Troy's philosophy here is that misfortune is inevitable, it is a part of life and one must experience it. The phrase also implies a defeatist attitude in the word choice of "crookeds
