The hardest things to talk about are the ones we ourselves can't understand.
-- Leda (chapter 1 paragraph 3)

Importance: The whole novel is Leda's attempt to understand her own actions. As she retells the story of how she came to leave her children, she tries to justify and make sense of it. Whenever someone asks her her reason for doing something, she either says she does not know or gives a noncommittal answer. She never understands why she takes, or keeps, the doll. Ironically, this quote comes at the outset of the novel, preparing the reader for a narrator who holds back, but Leda does not have a hard time talking about things she does not understand: she just cannot explain them.

The stomach of the females doesn’t have elastic membranes, it doesn’t sing, it’s mute.
-- Leda (chapter 2 paragraph 12)

Importance: Leda's obsession with pregnancy first appears when she finds the cicada on her pillow and imagines it...