The wisdom of the peasant is founded on one essential axiom: While wars may come and go, statesmen rise and fall, and popular attitudes wax and wane, when all is said and done a furrow remains a furrow.
-- Narrator ("The Line")

Importance: This quote from the narrator, offered as a description of Pushkin, is crucial to the broader themes of this story, which are related to the relatively insubstantial role that politics play in shaping human nature. Although there is a great deal of tension in Pushkin and Irina's relationship over her loyalty to Communism and his relative indifference to it, the pair ultimately fail to maintain their marriage more because of the differences between their personalities than because of anything about Russia in particular. Thus, the idea that "a furrow remains a furrow" is an important thematic nut for the story at large.

All the finest composers and architects have studied the craftsmanship...
-- Timothy ("The Ballad of Timothy Touchett" )