He thought he wouldn't recognize her if he met her now, it was only because he knew it was her that he could see the remnants of her, in her smile, still a shy smile.
-- Tommy Guptill (The Sign)

Importance: Tommy thinks about Lucy Barton and how traces of the girl he knew as a child still remain in the stranger's face on the book jacket. This quote is important because it demonstrates the way the past never quite recedes from the present, and the way that people are, in part, who they have always been, even if they drastically change.

It seemed the older he grew--and he had grown old--the more he understood that he could not understand this confusing contest between good and evil, and that maybe people were not meant to understand things here on earth.
-- Tommy Guptill (The Sign)

Importance: This quote underlines a major theme of the story and of the entire novel--that the line...