How can one imagine a future in a place that one does not even know exists?
-- Tony (I: Black Waters)

Importance: This quote is important in that it forces the modern reader to directly confront the terror that accompanied lack of global knowledge for people traveling prior to an age of information. Tony's inability to even conceive of the place he is going to is foreign to contemporary readers, who have access to information at the drop of a hat. Thus, the quote supports the novel's themes about coming-of-age while priming the reader for the novel's foreign landscape.

We are a people who live in the shadows.
-- Peter (I: Black Waters )

Importance: This quote from Peter lays bare the fate that most people of color are condemned to in colonial society while also acting as something of a challenge to Tony. Though he is repeatedly met with efforts to erase his identity or silence him, Tony pushes back against this...