“Her smile was a bite, and I was its target.”

“We went hand in hand across four lines of avenues. At the corner she was to go right, and I left."I'd like so much to come to your place today and let the blinds down. Today-right this minute" said O, and shyly looked up at me with her round crystal-blue eyes.she's a funny one. But what could I say? She was with me only yesterday, and she knows as well as I do that our next Sex Day is the day after tomorrow. It's just more of her thought getting ahead of itself, like a spark that flies too early in the ignition, which can do some harm at times.Saying goodbye, I kissed her twice-no, I'll tell the truth-three times on those wonderful blue eyes of hers that not the least little cloud ever troubled.”

“In the widely open cup of the armchair was I-330. I, on the floor, embracing her limbs, my head on her lap. We were silent. Everything was silent. Only the pulse was audible. Like a crystal I was dissolving in her, in I-330. I felt most distinctly how the polished facets which limited me in space were slowly thawing, melting away. I was dissolving in her lap, in her, and I became at once smaller and larger, and larger, unembraceable. For she was not she but the whole universe. For a second I and that armchair near the bed, transfixed with joy, we were one.”

“For one second I stared at her like all the others as something that had dropped out of nowhere: She was no longer a number, she was simply a person; she existed as nothing more than the metaphysical substance of the insult committed against OneState. But then some one of her movements-turning, she twisted her hips to the left-and all at once I knew: I know her, I know that body resilient as a ship-my eyes, my lips, my hands know it-in one moment I was absolutely sure of it.”

“Everyone has to go mad, it's essential fir everyone to go mad - as soon as possible! It's essential - I know.”

“O-90 sat over the notebook, her head leaning toward her left shoulder, and making such an effort that her tongue was pushing her left cheek out. She looked like such a child, so charming. And so I felt good all over, clear, simple...”

“I'm like a machine being run over its RPM limit: The bearings are overheating - a minute longer, and the metal is going to melt and start dripping and that'll be the end of everything. I need a quick splash of cold water, logic. I pour it on in buckets, but the logic hisses on the hot bearings and dissipates in the air as a fleeting white mist. Well, of course, it's clear that you can't establish a function without taking into account what its limit is. And it's also clear that what I felt yesterday, that stupid "dissolving in the universe," if you take it to its limit, is death. Because that's exactly what death is - the fullest possible dissolving of myself into the universe. Hence, if we let L stand for love and D for death, then L = f (D), i.e., love and death...”