I never imagined I would shoot a man. Or be a father. Or live so far from the sea.
-- Narrator Jim Stegner (Book One paragraph 1)

Importance: This is the first sentence of the novel. It references the three main aspects of Jim Stegner's life: his violent nature, the loss of his teenage daughter, and his affinity for water. He shot Lauder Simms to defend his daughter, his daughter is murdered and out of his reach, and he left a life of surfing for a life of fishing inland rivers and streams. The first would be his chief flaw (his violent impulses), the second his greatest loss, and the last where he feels most at home and at peace.

Somewhere in there among the ocean of women and the darting fish and a man happily lost at sea I hear wind over water and a heart breaking like crockery and the bleating roar of a retreating dinosaur.
-- Narrator Jim Stegner (Book One: Ch. 1: Pt. I paragraph 71)

Importance: Jim...