She’s thinking like a drug addict, like a gambler.
-- Narrator (Chapter 1)

Importance: From the first page, the novel compares Adèle's compulsive sexuality to a chemical addiction. In the pages that follow, the reader will have no problem understanding that her behavior is beyond her control.

She had always thought that a child would cure her. She had convinced herself that motherhood was the only way out of her malaise, the sole solution that could end this perpetual flight from herself.
-- Narrator (Chapter 6)

Importance: Adèle is adrift in her life. She thinks motherhood will fix her and make her stable, but she is mistaken.

She is bitter and irritable. Tonight she seems unable to exist. No one sees her, no one hears her. She doesn’t even try to suppress the images that flash through her mind, that burn behind her eyelids. Her leg shakes beneath the table. She wants to be naked, she...
-- Narrator (Chapter 10)