“Human has always striven to retain the past, to keep it convincing; there's nothing wicked in that. Without it we have no continuity; we have only the moment. And, deprived of the past, the moment - the present - has little meaning, if any.”
“In marriage the greatest hatred that is possible between human beings can be generated, perhaps because of the constant proximity, perhaps because once there was love. The intimacy is still there, even though the love element has disappeared. So a will to power, a struggle for domination, comes into being.”
“...that thing that's taken refuge there in that zinc bucket, without a wife, a career, a conapt, or money or the possibility of encountering any of these, still persists. For reasons unknown to me its stake in existence is greater than mine.”
“The termination of a relationship," he said, "is not a misunderstanding. It's a reorganization of life.”
“Does she make the heavens fall?" "Yes, she pulls down everything." Molinari nodded. "It's a psionic talent she has... it's called being a woman.”
“All right," Eric agreed. "If you were me, and your wife were sick, desperately so, with no hope of recovery, would you leave her? Or would you stay with her, even if you had traveled ten years into the future and knew for an absolute certainty that the damage to her brain could never be reversed? And staying with her would mean-"
"I can see what it would mean, sir," the cab broke in. "It would mean no other life for you beyond caring for her."
"That's right," Eric said.
"I'd stay with her," the cab decided.
"Why?"
"Because," the cab said, "life is composed of reality configurations so constituted. To abandon her would be to say, I can't endure reality as such. I have to have uniquely special easier conditions."
"I think I agree," Eric said after a time. "I think I will stay with her."
God bless you, sir," the cab said. "I can see that you're a good man.”
“Eric, I'm going to pay you back for leaving me." She smoothed her dress. "You understand?" "Yes," he said, and walked into the kitchen. "I'll devote my life to it," Kathy said, from the bedroom. "Now I have a reason for living. It's wonderful to have a purpose at last; it's thrilling. After all these pointless ugly years with you. God, it's like being born all over again." "Lots of luck," he said.”
“If you or I ever really accepted the moral responsibility for what we've done in our lifetime—we'd drop dead or go mad. Living creatures weren't made to understand what they do.”
“I hope I never get in a fix like that," Taubman said. "Hating someone I once loved.”
“But she looked—smaller. As if something in her had dwindled away, as if she had dried up. It was almost—age. Yet not quite. Could their separation have done this much damage? He doubted it. His wife, since he had seen her last, had become frail, and he did not like this; despite his animosity he felt concern.”
“Well, that's marriage these days. Legalized hate.”
“There ought to be an ordinance that a man can't work for the same outfit as his wife; hell, even in the same city.”
“I've married before and it was no better, and if I divorce Kathy I'll marry again—because as my brainbasher puts it I can't find my identity outside the role of husband and daddy and big butter-and-egg-man wage earner—and the next damn one will be the same because that's the kind I select. It's rooted in my temperament.”
“I didn't choose to get entangled in my domestic life, my boxer's clinch with Kathy. And if you think I did or do, it's because you're morbidly young. You've failed to pass from adolescent freedom into the land which I inhabit: married to a woman who is economically, intellectually, and even this, too, even erotically my superior.”
“Everything's the same, when you break through to absolute reality; it's all one vast blur.”
“life is composed of reality configurations so constituted. To abandon her would be to say, I can't endure reality as such. I have to have uniquely special easier conditions.”
“most horrid sound in the world, that of the once-was: alive in the past, perishing in the present, a corpse made of dust in the future.”
“Because when the death-dealing powers of ice and cold reach your loins, your breasts and hips and buttocks as well as your heart—it was already deep in her heart, surely—then there will be no more woman. And you won't survive that. No matter what I or any man chooses to do.”
“Always this barrier, this impossibility of getting through. This time he did not waste his time trying; he simply went on stroking her, thinking, It'll be on my conscience, whatever happens to her. And she knows it, too. So she's absolved of the burden of responsibility, and that, for her, is the worst thing possible. Too bad, he thought, I wasn't able to make love to her.”
“In marriage the greatest hatred that is possible between human beings can be generated, perhaps because of the constant proximity, perhaps because once there was love. The intimacy is still there, even though the love element has disappeared. So a will to power, a struggle for domination, comes into being.”
“The most horrid sound in the world, that of the once-was: alive in the past, perishing in the present, a corpse made of dust in the future.”
“Maybe, he pondered as he ascended the stairs, that's my problem with Kathy. I can't remember our combined past: can't recall the days when we voluntarily lived with each other... now it's become an involuntary arrangement, derived God knows how from the past.”
“she had it—his soul—and she was turning it over and over on her tongue. Goddam her!”
“And what good was a political strategist who couldn't look ahead to his own death? Without that he would have been merely another Hitler, who didn't want his country to survive him.”
“Has using that time-travel drug scrambled your wits, you don't know you've got only one tiny life and that lies ahead of you, not sideways or back? Are you waiting for last year to come by again or something?”
“I've been waiting a long time for last year. But I guess it's just not coming again.”
“Okay, I’ve never done this. This is the guy’s department. What do I do? We need to get Lee’s size and we need industrial strength. Show me which ones to buy.”
Eddie looked at the display and looked at me. “You’re askin’ me to help you buy condoms for Lee?”
“Industrial strength condoms,” I reminded him.
...
“Let me get this straight,” he said and I could tell he was laughing, “you dragged Eddie to Walgreen’s to help pick out condoms for me?”
“Well, I didn’t know!”…
“Did you tell Eddie the part about long-lasting reliability?”
Oh Lord.
“Forget it,” I said.
“Indy?” he called.
“What?” I snapped, kinda pissy.
“I love you.” He still had laughter in his voice and there was something very cool about him laughing and saying I love you at the same time.”
“If I don’t murder you this afternoon, it’ll be a gift sent directly from God Himself, and I vow to attend services again,” I said, holding a hand against my heart.
“I knew I’d get you to church eventually.”
“No lips,” Drustan warned. “Unless you wish me to be kissing Chloe.”
“No I have not asked Jesus to join us. All I hope and long for now is that He will ask me to join Him.”
“Using your feminine wiles to lead my familiar astray. If all you want is dangerous sex, I can give that to you better than he can, and I won't break your heart afterward." - Al to Rachel”
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