“Participating in Society in not a thing one can do naturally; one has to rehearse for it.”

“There are two lives, the natural and the spiritual, and we must lose the one before we can participate in the other.”

“There is no place for someone like him in the Society, I think, for someone who can create. He can do so many things of incomparable value, things no one else can do, and the Society doesn't care about that at all.”

“I suppose the most important thing, the heaviest single factor in one's life, is whether one's born male or female. In most societies it determines one's expectations, activities, outlook, ethics, manners—almost everything. Vocabulary. Semiotic usages. Clothing. Even food. Women... women tend to eat less... It's extremely hard to separate the innate differences from the learned ones. Even where women participate equally with men in the society, they still after all do all the childbearing, and so most of the child-rearing....”

“The enforcer takes an envelope from his side jacket pocket and drops it in one of the scummy puddles.I look at Predo.“You rehearse that move in advance?He shrugs.“Actually, not. This one has initiative.”

“The only things that one can use in fiction are the things that one has ceased to use in fact.”