All of them had been so tested and retested that they had acquired considerable skill in answering test questions the way the examiners wanted them a… - Frederik Pohl

When you spend weeks on end close to another person, so close that you know every hiccough, every smell and every scratch on the skin, you either come out of it hating each other or so deep in each other's gut that you can't find a way out. Klara and I were both. Our little love affair had turned into a Siamese-twin relationship. There wasn't any romance in it. There wasn't room enough between us for romance to occur. And yet I knew every inch of Klara, every pore, and every thought, far better than I'd known my own mother. And in the same way: from the womb out. I was surrounded by Klara.

Specialization is the goal of civilization.

I don’t think you know what it’s like to have someone head over heels in love with you. What’s the good of a man who’s upside down?