“One day,' Orest said, looking at him comically, 'you will say something that is less than practical and sensible, something that is driven by no forethought and nothing but passion, and I will probably collapse with shock.”

“What do you mean less than nothing? I don't think there is any such thing as less than nothing. Nothing is absolutely the limit of nothingness. It's the lowest you can go. It's the end of the line. How can something be less than nothing? If there were something that was less than nothing, then nothing would not be nothing, it would be something - even though it's just a very little bit of something. But if nothing is nothing, then nothing has nothing that is less than it is.”

“Looking at him like that, I felt like I needed something from him, or somebody, and that probably meant that he also needed something from me, or somebody, but the revelation was like looking at spots on a slide. Knowing that it meant something to somebody wasn't the same as it meaning something to you.”

“he looked like something more than human, or something less.”

“I can pick up the city feeds on my antenna. It said they were going to change you all. Turn you into something less dangerous. Are you still...?"She gazed at him. "What do you think, David?"He peered into her eyes for a long moment, then sighed and shook his head. "You just look like Tally to me."She looked down, her vision blurring.What's the matter?"Nothing, David." She shook her head. "You just took on five million years of evolution again."I what? Did I say something wrong?"No." She smiled. "You said something right.”

“Say it ' he said the words caught at the base of his throat. 'No one.' 'No one ' I sad I swore 'but you.' I said it because it was true. There was no one but him and there never would be. I loved him with pain and with something greater than pain with a barren ache that pealed not in the heart but in the desert dry alongside it. I know it was so even then: if in his arms I was a woman beyond them I was nothing.”