The sheer weight of literature you’ve got here, well, that will put a terrible strain on a house, Mrs. Touchet. Terrible strain.
-- Joseph (Volume One)

Importance: This quote from Joseph—the repairman who comes to fix the hole in the floor of the Ainsworth house in Tunbridge—is a significant piece of foreshadowing for the remainder of the novel. Although Joseph speaks in a literal sense of the impact that William's heavy bookshelves have had on the house's floors, his quote can be taken as something of a double entendre, speaking also to the ways in which William's fixation on his flagging literary career has caused the Ainsworth name to fall into ruin.

You can’t know what it is for an honest working man to try and get what he’s owed in this country.
-- Sarah (Volume Two)

Importance: This quote from Sarah, made in reference to the Tichborne claimant and his efforts to secure a...