Sometimes I don’t know why I do the things I do. Even after all this time, it’s still a new thing for me not to know, not to have orders to follow from one moment to the next.
-- Breq (Chapter 1)

Importance: When the novel begins, Breq turns over a girl’s body in the street to get a look at the face. What is less confusing to Breq is not that she is confronted with someone she knew long ago – Seivarden Vendaai – but that Breq does not know why she is doing what she is doing. This is because Breq was once an ancillary, artificial intelligence of a massive military starship for the Radch Empire. Now having her own will and her own decision-making abilities, Breq does things all the time that surprise her.

You are where you are as a result of decisions you made yourself.
-- Breq (Chapter 5)

Importance: When Vendaai has recovered...