How we cite our quotes: (Part.Section.Paragraph)
Quote #1
Name. He made a reaching, a flash of demand, and it returned to him carrying what might be called a definition. [...] "Name" is the single thing which is me and what I have done and been and learned.
It was all there, waiting for that single symbol, a name. All the wandering, the hunger, the loss, the thing which is worse than loss, called back. There was a dim and subtle awareness that even here, with the Prodds, he was not a something, but a substitute for something.
All alone.
He tried to say it [...] the farmer strained to receive what he was trying to convey [...] "Lone?" said Prodd.
It could be seen that the syllable meant something to Prodd, something like the codification he offered, though far less.
But it would do. (1.11.4-12)
Yes, this is one part of the novel we keep coming back to. Lone considers his name an exact tool of characterization. His loneliness is the gravity that draws the gestalt together. No wonder the book starts with him on page numero uno.
Quote #2
"Ask Baby what kind of people are all the time trying to find out what they are and what they belong to."
"He says, every kind."
"What kind," Lone whispered, "am I, then?"
A full minute later he yelled, "What kind?"
"Shut up awhile. He doesn't have a way to say it . . . uh . . . Here. He says he is a figure-outer brain and I am a body and the twins are arms and legs and you are the head. He says the 'I' is all of us."
"I belong. I belong. Part of you, part of you and you too."
"The head, silly."
Lone thought his heart was going to burst. He looked at them all, every one: arms to flex and reach, a body to care and repair, a brainless but faultless computer and—the head to direct it. (1.29.30-37)
Wait, is this Anthem territory? The I is all of us? Well, as the novel says, it is one thing for everyone to be an identical arm in a group, but for the gestalt, the individuals play unique roles. They retain their identities.
Quote #3
So it was that Lone came to know himself; and like the handful of people who have done so before him he found, at this pinnacle, the rugged foot of a mountain.
In other words, it is rare for people to fully understand their own identities, and those who manage to do so come to understand their own limitations. This isn't the most exciting pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, but it's a functional and rewarding one nonetheless.