But I was beginning to learn that your life is a story told about you, not one that you tell.
-- Aza (chapter 1)

Importance: Aza's anxiety causes her to feel like she has no agency, like she is a character in a book that someone else is writing. This feeling of a lack of agency is a fundamental quality of Aza's, but by the end of the novel she learns that it does not have to define her. The author refers back to this quote at the end of the novel as Aza states, "But the world is also the stories we tell about it" (257). She may not necessarily get to write her own story, but she does get a choice in how she interprets that story.

The thing about a spiral is, if you follow it inward, it never actually ends. It just keeps tightening, infinitely.
-- Aza (chapter 1)

Importance: This is the first of many references...