Some benefit from learning, but some just have their brains addled. My sister’s a woman of no understanding, and wants to turn Egorka into a scholar and she doesn’t understand that with my affairs I could make Egorka happy forever.
-- Kuzmichov (chapter 1)

Importance: What Kuzmichov is trying to say here is that since merchants make more money than scholars, Egorushka would be better off becoming a merchant. To Kuzmichov, money equates happiness. He has trouble understanding why his sister would go out of her way to ensure her son’s education when—in his eyes—financial security is far more important. Wealth versus education continues to be a pertinent theme throughout the novella.

Before her death she had been alive and had bought soft poppy-seed bagels from the market, but now she sleeps and sleeps…
-- Narrator (chapter 1)

Importance: This quote portrays the simplicity of Egorushka's worldview. His youthful innocence paints things in a straightforward...