Indonesia offered what seemed like a limitless range of experience, but there was a murky, threatening edge to it. I’d never seen such stark poverty as what was on display in Jakarta, or such naked capitalism at work in the enormous factories and the Texas drawls coming from across the hotel lobby where the oil company executives were drinking.”
-- Piper (chapter 1 paragraph 5)

Importance: In this quote, Piper describes the intersecting prosperity and poverty in Indonesia. Here, Indonesia is compared to the drug trade as brilliance and decadence coexist in a particularly unsettling manner.

I had only the most tenuous idea of what might happen next, but I knew I would have to be brave. Not foolhardy, not in love with risk and danger, not making ridiculous exhibitions of myself to prove that I wasn’t terrified – really genuinely brave. Brave enough to be quiet when quiet was called for, brave enough to observe...
-- Piper (chapter 3 paragraph 4)