Geography here is everything.”
-- Narrator (chapter 1)

Importance: This sentence is repeated throughout the novel, but McCann first presents it in the opening chapter. Essentially, it lays geography out as a central theme in the novel, specifically as it relates to borders and their divisiveness. Israel-Palestine is a partitioned land, divided by a wall in the physical realm and by religion, language, culture, and ethnicity in the social realm, along with all the implications on wealth and life that this entails. With this quote, McCann makes clear very early that where you stand (or where you are born, where you live, where you work, where you drive your car, and more) dictates heavily the life you live, how you are treated in the eyes of others and the law, and what you might encounter. This mantra guides the novel and its plot perhaps more than any other notion.

He turned nineteen years old with...
-- Narrator (chapter 49)