How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #7
"It's not in accord with present-day Mercerian ethics," [Isidore] pointed out. "All life is one; 'no man is an island,' as Shakespeare said in olden times."
"John Donne." (13.22-23)
John Donne made history—or at least a couple of quotes on Goodreads—with his famous Meditation XVII. Interestingly, Do Androids Dream? seems to be reconsidering Donne's famous words. The novel's equivalent would likely read, "No man should be an island." Or an android.
Quote #8
"I wish," Rachael said, "that I had known that before I came. I never would have flown down here. I think you're asking too much. You know what I have? Toward this Pris android?"
"Empathy," [Rick] said.
"Something like that. Identification; there goes I. My god, maybe that's what'll happen." (16.27-29)
Here, Rachael has a real chance to connect with another android—which shouldn't be too hard considering they've got a lot in common—but she can only see Pris as an extension of herself. In Rachael's world there is only "I." That makes for some serious I-solation. (Sorry, couldn't help ourselves.)
Quote #9
You have to be with other people, [Isidore] thought. In order to live at all. I mean, before they came here I could stand it, being along in the building. But now it's changed. You can't go back, he thought. You can't go from people to nonpeople. In panic he thought, I'm dependent on them. Thank god they stayed. (18.8)
Thanks, Isidore, for basically summing up the theme of isolation: it's unnatural. We need each other to survive. As Aristotle said, a person who doesn't need others is either a beast or a god, but definitely not human.