An image of the place they had come from appeared in my mind, because I’d seen videos on the Internet of the factories in which they were bred. They looked like the back rooms at fast-food joints: full of tall shelving units, stacked tightly with black, lidded boxes where the snakes lived until they grew large enough to be sold. At the bottom of each box was a small layer of dust-free wood chips and a single branch. They had never seen daylight or felt the touch of the earth, and now they were put on display in spaces mimicking natural conditions. Do they ever learn that all lives are not created equal?”
-- Bekim (Chapter 1)

Importance: This quote is important because it shows the horrible conditions in which the snakes are brought up. Bekim empathizes with the snakes and feels as if his life in Finland, as an immigrant, is similarly unfair...