“It was right then and there that she'd realized there was no quota on misery for people, no quantifiable threshold that once reached, got you miraculously taken out of the distress pool.”

“Even if we can never quantify [satisfaction or happiness]… as precisely as we currently quantify GNP,… perhaps it is better to be vaguely right than precisely wrong.”

“Gene police! You! Out of the pool, now!”

“Look, I'll fight, too. What do you think it is? Bear, coyote…?"
"My brother."
"Your…" Dismay pooled in Mark. She'd just stepped over the line of acceptable craziness. "Oh.”

“Ok," he said, "I don't like to disturb you at what I know must be a difficult and distressing time for you, but I need to know first of all if you actually realize that this is a difficult and distressing time for you.”

“there is nothing bad to fear; once you have crossed that threshold, all is well. Another world, and you do not have to speak”

“But you are a scientist, Michael Poole; and the skill of a scientist is in asking the right question.”

“Once you realize that the road is the goal and that you are always on the road, not to reach a goal, but to enjoy its beauty and its wisdom, life ceases to be a task and becomes natural and simple, in itself an ecstasy.”

“My misery is reaching epidemic proportions.”

“A comedian goes out and hits people right on. A clown uses pathos. He can be funny, then turn right around and reach people and touch them with what life is like.”