“His touch brought with it the strangest sense of relief — as if I’d been in pain and that pain had suddenly ceased.”

“Her eyes shot up to his, expressing gratitude. He ignored the pain her obvious relief brought him.”

“...I wondered why so much had been written about love's pain and so little about the glorious relief of being delivered from love's pain.”

“My tears brought no sense of release or relief. Their flight felt like the lightest, coldest touch of a departing lover.”

“The instant the old folks had entered their codes and the Harmony program had begun to sing, suicide disappeared from human society. Nearly all battles ceased. The individual was no longer a unit. The entire social system was the unit. By losing its sense of self and self-awareness, society had been freed from the pain it suffered because its systems had relied on imperfect humans, arriving for the first time at a perfect bliss. I am a part of the system, as you are part of the system. No one felt any pain about that any longer. There was no “me” to feel pain. I had been replaced by a single...”

“And even though I’d cried in my bed every night since, feeling his phantom arms around me, it had been worth eight hours Saturday night. The pleasure then was worth the pain now.”