I loved how in college you could just do nothing. You didn’t have to decide you were a poet or a whore or anything.
-- Eileen ("in and out")

Importance: This quotation helps to establish the idea of identity and Eileen’s relationship to it. Much of the novel is about Eileen’s journey of self-realization, and this quotation helps to establish the idea that that journey began in earnest after she left college and moved to New York. Eileen then spends her twenties in New York working towards discovering and developing her own identity.

A person’s ability to arrive in some comfortable state with both cities has a lot to do with money. Not necessarily having it, but having a good relationship with it.
-- Eileen ("in and out")

Importance: This quotation reflects the theme of money, which recurs throughout the novel. Eileen often states, such as in this quotation, how money can have a significant effect on one...