She liked, most of all, that in this place of affluent ease, she could pretend to be someone else, someone specially admitted into a hallowed American club, someone adorned with certainty.
-- Narrator (Part 1, Chapter 1 paragraph 1)

Importance: This quotation reflects Ifemelu’s feeling about having become successful in America. It hints that perhaps she hadn’t always been a part of this club or lived with certainty. Indeed, the reader comes to find out that Ifemelu’s start in America was anything but affluent.

The flats were in fact already rented by an oil company, but he sometimes told her senseless lies such as this, because a part of him hoped she would ask a question or challenge him, though he knew she would not, because all she wanted was to make sure the conditions of their life remained the same, and how he made that happen she left entirely up to him.
-- Narrator (Part 1, Chapter 2 paragraph 18)

Importance: Here, readers see...