How we cite our quotes: (Part.Chapter.Paragraph), with the exception of Part V, which runs (Part#. "Short Title". Paragraph). Part V has no numbered chapters—only title headings.
Quote #1
More time had passed than he had realized. Mama had relinquished the marshal's baton of her motherhood and gone into a different world. (II.2.7)
Karel and his wife, Marketa, have spent most of their married lives avoiding Karel's mother because she is demanding and obnoxious—a stereotypical in-law. But now that Mama is getting up there in years, Karel realizes that she really doesn't want to be all up in his business. She just doesn't care anymore. Jan would say that she has drifted over the border in relation to Karel.
Quote #2
Mama felt abandoned among her recollections, betrayed by the sudden lack of interest and by the failure of her memory. (II.4.11)
The problem with aging (well, one of them) is that memory often fails us—and so do the loved ones in our lives. Mama finds that her son Karel, his wife, Marketa, and their "cousin" Eva really have no interest in waiting around while she untangles her mixed-up memories. And that's a terribly lonely experience for her.
Quote #3
...she thought it was as if he really were a four-year-old, as if he were fleeing to his childhood, leaving the two women alone except for his extraordinarily efficient body, so mechanically robust that it seemed impersonal and empty, and imaginable with anyone else's soul. (II.12.4)
Marketa reacts to Karel's bizarre behavior during their threesome with Eva. What Marketa can't know is that Karel is reliving the moment of his first sexual arousal (he was 4), when he saw his mother's friend, Mrs. Nora, naked in a locker room. The episode is deeply isolating for Marketa, who feels that she's having sex with a robot. But this situation also places Karel in a world of his own, lost in the memory of that proto-sexual encounter—and he's really, really enjoying himself.