“I always thought that something had to be right or it had to be wrong,” Ken said. “You know, two plus two equals four. Period. Not five. Not three. Four. So I don't see how two people can be neither right nor wrong for each other. Especially if they love each other. Or say they love each other.”
“Just because you love someone won't make them love you back,” Maxine said. “Think of it as a design flaw.”
“A what?”
“A design flaw. You know, like how sometimes a company will make some really great product and everybody's happy with it and then little by little they figure out that there's a problem with it that nobody anticipated.”
“Like what?” Ken asked.
“I don't know. Like the Pinto,” Maxine said. "The Ford Pinto. Everybody was all excited about it when it came out because it was so little and zippy and got great gas mileage (..) Except the geniuses at Ford put the gas tank under the back axle, and whenever anyone got hit from behind – say at a red light or something like that – the whole thing blew up. Sky-high. No chance of surviving. In short, the design was great. But not perfect. (..) But that's the way things are. And I don't really see how we, as humans, are any different. We're an absolute miracle of design. We come in all these fun shapes and sizes and we're designed to last for a long time, and we can survive all sorts of hardship and mistreatment and be good as new the next day – try pouring a bottle of bourbon down your toaster and see just how well it works the next day – but the design's not perfect. Nothing is. And just because you love somebody won't make them love you back.”
“What a world,” Ken said.
“It could be worse,” Maxine said. “At least we don't explode on impact!”

//Paul Schmidtberger, Design Flaws of the Human Condition