“It would take centuries and he must grow and grow and grow, but he was in no hurry--he grokked that Eternity and the ever-beautifully-changing Now were identical.”

“Till the stars grow old and our sun grows cold? Will you fight for us, lie for us, love us - and let us love you?”

“If Satan should ever replace God he would find it necessary to assume the attributes of Divinity.”

“Jill... had explained homosexuality, after Mike had read about it and failed to grok--and had given him rules for avoiding passes; she knew that Mike, pretty as he was, would attract such. He had followed her advice and had made his face more masculine, instead of the androgynous beauty he had had. But Jill was not sure that Mike would refuse a pass, say, from Duke--fortunately Mike's male water brothers were decidedly masculine, just as his others were very female women. Jill suspected that Mike would grok a 'wrongness' in the poor in-betweeners anyhow--they would never be offered water.”

“Customs tell a man who he is, where he belongs, what he must do. Better illogical customs than none; men cannot live together without them.”

“He was delighted to recognize his own human name on two of the papers; he always got an odd thrill out of reading it, as if he were two places at once.”

“One might define adulthood as the age at which a person learns that he must die ...and accepts his sentence undismayed.”