“She didn't want pity. Just to love a man and have a man love her. This was nothing to apologize for or feel weak or needy about. It just was.”

“Why are some of us, he wondered, unable to love success or power or great beauty? Because we feel unworthy of them, because we feel more at home with failure? He didn't believe that was the reason. Perhaps one wanted the right balance, just as Christ had, the legendary figure whom he would have liked to believe in. 'Come unto me all ye that travail are and heavy laden.' Young as the girl was at that August picnic she was heavily laden with her timidity and shame. Perhaps he had merely wanted her to feel that she was loved by someone and so he began to love her himself. It wasn't pity, any more than it had been pity when he fell in love with Sarah pregnant by another man. He was there to right the balance. That was all.”

“Still, it would have been great, just once, to have a man stare at her with total adoration. To have him be... enthralled. Yes, that was the word. She would have loved for a man to be enthralled by her.”

“When a man touches a woman's body, he is not just touching her body. It goes MUCH DEEPER than that for a woman. He is touching parts of her soul-parts as diverse as how she feels about being a grandmother some day, to what is her favorite ice cream, to how much she loves her pet, and to her opinion of how the current President is governing. The man wants a sexual encounter and love is far from his mind; she desires permanence, commitment, safety, and security.”

“Ayla just didn't seem like a woman who was about to join and establish a new hearth with a man she loved. There was no joy, no excitement. Something was missing. Something called Jondalar.”

“Love. It has always seemed to me that love is a combination of lust and pity. (...) I've got to have some feelings of pity for a girl to love her. She's got to have a fragile quality of some sort.”