The meaning of 'quirk aside'

Question

I read a sentence 'Some personality quirks aside,' in the following context

When I was a kid, our neighbors had two twin cats. They looked seem- ingly identical—the same charcoal fur and the same piercing green eyes.
Some personality **quirks aside**, you couldn’t tell them apart just from looking at them.But of course, they were two different cats, two separate beings, even though they looked exactly the same.

Psersonality is a noun,so 'quirk' should be a verb.

In Oxford Dictionaries, it reads

1.Noun
A peculiar aspect of a person's character or behaviour.
2.Verb
(with reference to a person's mouth or eyebrow) move or twist suddenly, especially to express surprise or amusement.

From the definition, a verb doesn't make sense. If a noun, I'm unable to parse its grammar and catch its meaning.

Answer 1

Psersonality is a noun,so 'quirk' should be a verb.

Not that simple, unfortunately. Commas do not necessarily end clauses in sentences.

Some personality quirks aside, you couldn’t tell them apart just from looking at them.

The subject of this sentence is you and the verb is could not tell.

I think what is happening is that some personality quirks aside is an adverbial phrase - things that answer the question or provide more information toward the question how? are generally adverbs and modify/qualify the verb in the sentence.