The passive personality of this woman in whom I could detect neither freshness nor charm, or anything especially refined, suited me down to the ground. There was no need to affect intellectual leanings in order to win her over, or to worry that she might be comparing me to the preening men who pose in fashion catalogues, and she didn’t get worked up if I happened to be late for one of our meetings.
-- Narrator (Mr. Cheong) (Part 1 – Section 1)

Importance: This quote represents the confining, sexist attitudes of the narrator, and also represents the controlling, conventional way of thinking against which the narrator's wife / the novel's protagonist so significantly rebels.

A long bamboo stick strung with great blood-red cashes of meat, blood still dripping down. Try to push past but the meat, there’s no end to the meat, and no exit. Blood in my mouth, blood soaked clothes sucked onto my skin … in that...
-- The Wife (Yeong-hye) (Part 1 – Section 1 )