I wanted her stories about her life in Ghana with my father to be filled with all the kings and queens and curses that might explain why my father wasn't around in terms far grander and more elegant than the simple story I knew.
-- Gifty (chapter 7)

Importance: Gifty recalls feeling little connection to the homeland of her parents growing up and wishing that she knew more about it, particularly after her father left. But when she asked her mother questions, she was frequently brushed aside. This is a common problem with first-generation immigrants, in which they do not feel fully a part of the culture they are living in or the one their parents came from.

It happened that quickly, a tremble-length reckoning. One minute there was a God with the whole world in his hands; the next minute the world was plummeting, ceaselessly, toward an ever-shifting bottom."
-- Gifty (chapter 8)

Importance: Early on in the novel...