A thought like that could, if analyzed, give one solitary human a lonely longing for something he touched to mean something human and ordinary and touch him back, and for something to satisfy the stirrings of affection that good actions made in a human heart.

But if something did, was it real? Was affection real because one side of the transaction felt it, if the other side in responding always felt something different?

— Inheritor by C.J. Cherryh (Foreigner, #3) (12%)