Four years after the war and still everything is up shit creek.
-- Narration (chapter 1)

Importance: This quotation is found in the first paragraph of the novel, and it functions to emphasize the lingering wounds of World War Two that heavily shape the story's cultural moment. World War Two has had lasting effects both in terms of widespread death, destruction, and economic disruption.

This place we’re going, it’s all sheep, I suppose. We hate sheep, don’t we, Lenny? It was all sheep in Wales.
-- Miriam (chapter 4)

Importance: Miriam makes this statement while she and Lenny are being transported to the hospital. The statement emphasizes her and Lenny's distaste for rural environments, thus foreshadowing the difficulty of their transition to the relatively isolated hospital.

Nothing they do here makes you better.
-- Colin Cox (chapter 5)

Importance: Colin says this to Lenny when they first meet. Colin's statement emphasizes the ineffectiveness of the hospital's treatments, thus underlining the arrival of streptomycin...