This fella doesn’t consider himself to be the same as everybody else.
-- Bean Uí Néill (Section One )

Importance: Bean Uí Néill is speaking about Lloyd, and her observation that he seems to regard himself as more than the typical tourist speaks to the tension at the heart of the novel. Lloyd sees himself as an artist wholly committed to his craft, and indeed believes himself a more authentic painter than most. To the islanders, though, his rendition of their experience and their culture rings false and incomplete. This gap in perception is fundamental to the tensions that exist between the novel's characters.

Languages die…because the speakers give up on them.
-- Lloyd (Section Two )

Importance: Lloyd's rebuttal to Masson's anger that he refuses to speak Irish points to the callousness of Lloyd's perception of the islanders; he sees the dissolution of their way of life in a Darwinian light, convinced that its death is simply an inevitable result...