It was not a street anymore but a world, a time and space of falling ash and near night.
-- Narration (chapter 1)

Importance: This is the first line of the novel, and it refers to Keith's experience of the events of September 11. The description of the atmosphere at the site of the attacks emphasizes a sense of destruction and disorientation, that trauma of which echoes through the rest of the narrative.

He wouldn’t need the [poker] table, two players dead, one badly injured.
-- Narration (chapter 3)

Importance: This quotation appears in the scene where Keith goes to his apartment to pick up some of his belongings. His reflections about the poker table establish the trauma that has been inflicted upon him by the deaths of some of his closest friends on September 11.

We came out and passed some windows and saw the plaza where it's a bombed-out city, things on fire, we saw bodies, we saw clothes...
-- Florence (chapter 5)