They were young, educated, and both virgins on this, their wedding night, and they lived in a time when a conversation about sexual difficulties was plainly impossible. But it is never easy.
-- Narration (One)

Importance: This quote sketches in the essential circumstance of the two protagonists, adding a layer of meaning to their situation: the final line suggests a universality about their experience, the sense that for young people in whatever time and whatever place, conversations about sexuality and intimacy are not ever easy to have.

…[Edward] was so astonished by his own decisiveness, as well as mentally cramped by unresolved desire, that he could have had little idea of the contradiction she began to live with from that day on, the secret affair between disgust and joy.”
-- Narration (One)

Importance: In this quote, there is a sense of a fundamental selfishness and self-absorption in Edward, at odds with his clearly felt (and clearly expressed) love...