A year earlier I’d been a Patriot soldier, enlisted as a substitute for the man who owned me.
-- Narrator (Part 1, Chapter 2)

Importance: Curzon had once before fought in the army. He had been forced to join the armed forces by his master, who enlisted Curzon in his place.

He died because I threw a rock. / I shook my head. No, that gap-toothed boy lives because I threw a rock.
-- Narrator (Part 1, Chapter 4)

Importance: Curzon is at first horrified because his actions had led to the death of a redcoat. Instead of focusing on the death of the British soldier, Curzon reminds himself that his actions kept the gap-toothed boy, fighting on the American side, to stay alive.

There was nothing waiting for me in Albany. Nothing waiting anywhere. The shape of my life had altered when Bellingham enlisted me. It changed again when I escaped the prison. It shattered when Isabel left.
-- Narrator (Part 1, Chapter 4)

Importance: Because he has lost the...