“Of course, it was a rather hard lot, to be cherished. The beloved can so easily disappoint when they inevitably prove to be human.”

“Love is fragile, It can easily break, So take care of it, Cherish it, Respect it.”

“Every human life has many aspects. The past of each one of us can be just as easily arranged into the biography of a beloved statesman as into that of a criminal.”

“Anyone can write five people trapped in a snowstorm. The question is how you get them into the snowstorm. It's hard to write a good play because it's hard to structure a plot. If you can think of it off the top of your head, so can the audience. To think of a plot that is, as Aristotle says, surprising and yet inevitable, is a lot, lot, lot of work.”

“I expect it will turn out that sexual intercourse is possible between Gethenian double-sexed and Hainish-norm one-sexed human beings, though such intercourse will inevitably be sterile. It remains to be proved; Estraven and I proved nothing except perhaps a rather subtler point.”

“How can you admire a human who consciously embraces the bland, the mediocre, and the safe rather than risk the suffering that disappointment can bring?”