ELIS: I hoped you would speak of that, my brother.
WRIGHT: That he is an individual, his self-hood precious and inviolate, yet he must live in harmony with other individuals whose right to life and welfare is as certain as his own. Approach the study of society from any direction you will, that problem is at the heart of it, and must be a thousand generations from now, because it must be met anew with every infant born. We think, here, that the most rewarding answer is in the old virtues of self-knowledge, charity, honesty, forbearance, patience. Now, those are all words that demand definition and multiple definition; on that basis we have our children study them, search the depth and height of them, in the not so simple problems of childhood through the tougher ones of adolescence and maturity. We make them understand that lip service will not do: if one is to make himself honest he must eat honesty with breakfast, sweat with it in the sun, laugh and play and suffer with it and lie down with it at night until it's near as the oxygen in his blood. Yes, we aim high. Cruelly high, would you say? We don't think so. Perfection is a cold spot on top of a mountain, and nobody ever climbed there. We have trouble and fun and arguments; sometimes the garden weeds grow until tomorrow or the day after, but we sleep well.
DOROTHY: Speaking of perfection and goodness and things and stuff—I know it was Paul who put those violin strings by Nan's bed, but which one of you supplied them?
SLADE: Well, he told me—
DOROTHY: Will it be all right if I reach over this daughter of mine and kiss you?
SLADE: They did brief us, back on Earth, that we must respect local customs—
MIJOK: And perhaps even another drink could do him no harm.
PAKRIAA: He's pied.
ELIS: I would not say that. Speaking as Governor, I say that the local wine industry deserves every encouragement it can get—and has, ever since Samis' favorite kink had kittens in the bottom of the vest bat.