We are each shaped by the people who gave us life. Everything we are and all that we do can be traced back, in one way or another, to early influences: parents, family, a home or the lack of a home. In my case, four figures from my childhood helped to make me who I am, each giving me a gift that is unique: my father, my mother, my grandmother, and my grandfather. To understand me, you have to know them. The excerpt above is from page 35 of Nothing's Impossible: Leadership Lessons from Inside and Outside the Classroom by Lorraine Monroe. Paraphrase, summarize, and quote the passage above. Be sure to include in-text citations using the MLA style.

In order for you to know a person, you must first know his past, and especially the people, and circumstances, that shaped him/her into what he/she has become: "everything we are and all that we do can be traced back, in one way or another, to early influences..." (Monroe 35). Parents, relatives, very close and special people, and also circumstances, are the most important background information for someone to say they know anyone. In this man´s particular case, it is four main figures who become the framework, of who he is: "In my case, four figures from my childhood helped to make me who I am... my father, my mother, my grandmother, and my grandfather." (Monroe 35), because of the roles that they played in his life, and the way they impacted him: "... each giving me a gift that is unique..." (Monroe 35). And it is only through knowing about them, and how they played that role in his life that anyone can understand who he is (Monroe 35).