I’m the best auctioneer in the world…I can imitate Janis Joplin after two rums. I can interpret Chinese fortune cookies. I can stand an egg upright on a table, the way Christopher Columbus did in the famous anecdote.
-- Gustavo (chapter 1)

Importance: This quotation, which comes from the beginning of the novel, gives the reader a first glimpse into the personality of the protagonist. Gustavo is clearly a confident, lively, and a little eccentric, and these qualities significantly affect the way in which Gustavo recounts his life story to the reader.

The strand that any auction follows is, in turn determined by the relative value of the eccentricity (epsilon) of the auctioneer’s discourse.
-- Gustavo (chapter 1)

Importance: This rather abstruse statement gives the reader a brief introduction to the principles behind Gustavo's profession. As Gustavo demonstrates throughout the novel, each method of auctioneering is governed by various approaches to both truth and fiction in order...