I raised the lid on the ashtray, a graveyard of smashed butts inside – your cigarettes – I dropped the lid back down.
-- Narrator (NA)

Importance: This quotation makes evident Lorenzo’s morbid turn of mind, with the use of somber and violent imagery (a “graveyard” of “smashed” cigarettes). It also displays his tendency to pursue then retreat from the dark truths he has come to uncover, turning away from the ashtray just as he is later unable to face the contents of Lula’s coffin.

You boarded planes, got off planes on the other side of the planet and showed everyone how convenient it was to buy an enormous egg for people to sweat inside … You’d board another plane, leave for another part of the planet, change languages, and talk about ionized oxygen.
-- Narrator (NA)

Importance: Here, Lorenzo’s account of his mother’s career combines the naive child’s wonder at the scale of her...