Robert A. Heinlein

Patricia Paiwonski gave Ben Caxton the all-out kiss of brotherhood before he knew what hit him.

There was so much to grok, so little to grok from.

He has this crazy Martian idea that he can trust utterly anyone with whom he has shared a drink of water. With a 'water brother' he is completely docile and with anybody else he is stubborn as a mule.

Patricia's nature was an endless wish to make other people as happy as she was.

My dear, I used to think I was serving humanity... and I pleasured in the thought. Then I discovered that humanity does not want to be served; on the contrary it resents any attempt to serve it.

This brother wanted him to place his whole body in the water of life. No such honor had ever come to him; to the best of his knowledge and belief no one had ever before been offered such a holy privilege. Yet he had begun to understand that these others did have greater acquaintance with the stuff of life… a fact not yet grokked but which he had to accept.