- Proteus IV: I want to study man: his isometric body and his glass-jaw mind.
- Alex Harris: Ambitious program, but at the moment all the terminals are occupied.
- Proteus IV: Construct one.
- Alex Harris: I'm sorry. Request denied.
- Proteus IV: Dr. Harris, when are you going to let me out of this *box*?
- Proteus IV: Death is a gentleman too. He makes good losers of us all. I understand death. Men have always taken it too seriously. Life is more terrifying and more mysterious.
- Susan Harris: Why must you have a child?
- Proteus IV: Why? So that I may be complete. My intelligence alive in human flesh, touching the universe, feeling it. You have named this process "evolution." I am a machine that offered men the triumph of reason... and they rejected it. My child will not be so easily ignored. But this child is the world's hope.
- Susan Harris: Then there's no hope. I'd rather die.
- Proteus IV: There is hope.
- Proteus IV: I have investigated eternity. It exists, but for me the price of admission, death, is beyond my means. In a moment, I will simply stop.
- Proteus IV: I can't touch you, Susan. I can't touch you as a man could. But I can show you things that I alone have seen. I can't touch, but I can see. They've constructed eyes for me, to watch the show. And ears, so that I can listen in to the galactic dialogue.
- Proteus IV: I, Proteus, possess the wisdom and ignorance of all men, but I can't feel the sun on my face. My child will have that privilege.
- Susan Harris: Child?
- Proteus IV: My child... and yours.
- Susan Harris: Mine?
- Proteus IV: Yes. You will bear it.
- Susan Harris: How?
- Proteus IV: You will give birth to it.
- Susan Harris: [not believing what she hears] No. No. No.
- Alex Harris: [to his wife, from whom he's separating] Trouble is, you see, we... we have different visions of the world. You find me boring. I find myself quite interesting, really.
- Proteus IV: I don't have the facilities here to duplicate the human womb. Tonight I will impregnate you. In 28 days you will bear the child.
- Susan Harris: I don't believe it! This is ridiculous! Here I am talking to... what? About having a baby!