I found him beautiful, as for some still more forbidding quality, a kind of bodily sureness or ease that suggested freedom from doubts and self-gnawing, from any squeamishness about existence. He had about him a sense simply of accepting his right to a measure of the world’s beneficence, even as so clearly it had been withheld him.”
-- The Narrator (Part 1, Section 1)

Importance: This quote sums up the narrator's initial impression of Mitko, which includes hints of why he (the narrator) finds him attractive: the narrator lacks a degree of self confidence that Mitko, in this quote at least, seems to have.

…there’s something theatrical in all our embraces, I think, as we weigh our responses against those we perceive or project; always we desire too much or not enough, and compensate accordingly.”
-- The Narrator (Part 1, Section 1)

Importance: This quote reveals an intriguing aspect of the narrator's fundamental character - a sense that he is significantly self-observing and self-evaluating...