...I rejoiced in the flaws that made her more real to me

My definition of good literature is that which can be read by an educated reader, and reread with increased pleasure.

Men are said to desire women, Severian. Why do they despise the women they obtain?

Weak people believe what is forced on them. Strong people what they wish to believe, forcing that to be real.

There's a certain kind of lonely man who rejects love, because he believes that anyone who offers it wouldn't be a lover worth having.

Woody Allen once said: "You know there must be intelligent life in space. The question is do they have good Chinese restaurants and do they deliver?" Which is really a joke, but it is also a very profound remark. When you say do they have good Chinese restaurants, what you're really saying is, "How much are they like us?" And when you say, "Do they deliver?" you're saying, "Can they get here?" Both of which are profound questions. And at the present, we have no answers.

I could speculate, but it would be just speculation and the kind of thing that you would get in with a science fiction story. And if I was doing a science fiction story then I would come up with what can go wrong with this system.