Life is precisely that which she and others were prodigiously killing—the moment itself.
-- Roza (chapter 1)

Importance: After Roza achieves her first moment of enlightenment in the novel, she gains a complex understanding of life that Bahar and the others have a difficult time understanding. What Roza tries to convey is that contrary to how she has always felt about her life, life is not defined by the past or even the future, but by the present moment. This speaks to the major conflict in the novel, as both past grief and the future fear of death often holds characters back from enjoying the present. Hushang serves as an example of this, as he allows his grief and fears to send him into such a deep depression, that he spends many years of his life never moving and barely living. This quote is just one example of how even though Azar makes a...