She opened the portal, and the mind met her more than halfway. Inside, it was tropical and snowing, and the first flake of the blizzard of everything landed on her tongue and melted.
-- Protagonist (chapter 1)

Importance: The author opens the novel with a metaphorical description of the protagonist logging onto the portal, her term for the internet. The portal is both tropical and snowy because it encompasses everything all at once. It is a blizzard of potential knowledge and information, and this is one of the main reasons it holds so much appeal for the protagonist.

Other people's diaries streamed around her. Should she be listening, for instance, to the conversations of teenagers? Should she follow with such avidity the compliments that rural sheriffs paid to porn stars, not realizing that other people could see them? What about the thread of women all realizing they had the exact same scar on their knee...
-- Protagonist (chapter 1)