There are blanks in this life, white spaces you can detect if you open the ‘case file’: a single sheet in a sky-blue folder that has faded with time.
-- Jean Eyben (Chapter 1)

Importance: The opening sentence of the story introduces several motifs and themes that run throughout the novel, including the blank spaces, the color blue, and the case file. This quote is important because it sets the stage and tone for the rest of the novel.

Of course, I’d always enjoyed slipping into other people’s lives, out of curiosity, but also out of a need to understand them better and disentangle the enmeshed strands of their existence—something they were often incapable of doing themselves because they were too close to it, while I had the advantage of being a simple spectator, or rather a witness, as one might say in court.
-- Jean (Chapter 1)

Importance: As a narrator, Jean is ideal because he loves...