What were miracles, but science that man didn't yet understand? And didn't that make it all the more miraculous that the secrets of the universe were out there, codes one might decipher if smart enough, tenacious enough?
-- Narrator (Chapter 1)

Importance: Here the narrator is explaining Hazel's feelings about science. She has been studying science for years out of her father's books. As the novel begins, she tries to get more first hand knowledge about the field both by performing her own experiments and by sneaking first into the dissection presentation and then into Dr. Beecham's medical class. All of her actions are motivated by her love for science. She spends half of the novel engaged to Bernard, and she spends a decent amount of the novel in love with Jack, but her true passion is neither of them. Rather, it is science.

Mostly, though, it was the unloved who made Jack's living, the...
-- Narrator (chapter 9)