If you are part of a society that votes, then do so.
There may be no candidates or measures you want to vote for …
but there are certain to be ones you want to vote against.
-Lazarus Long, from The Notebooks of Lazarus Long

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Ah, Lazarus Long... the only book that made me cry. It is probably the pinnacle of R.A.H.'s canon, and probably also the tipping point for his slide into madness.

There is little craft in practicing legerdemain by oneself. Not devoid of craft - the practitioner still can assess hirself, objectively so if s/he is mature enough.

There is much craft in performing that same sleight-of-hand in public, without warning to the audience. Usually, however, this is related to assisting said audience by helping carry hir valuables without permission.

There is mastery of the craft in presenting the same illusion after building up audience anticipation. All eyes are on the magician, all minds wound to try to pierce the mirage.

That is Robert A. Heinlein's Time Enough for Love.

Seeing as he blatantly does this during the buildup, I see no spoiler in telling you the ending (of the first part, at least. The better of the two, in my opinion.) Lazarus, being a modern-day Methuselah, outlives his wife.

The first part of TEFL is a series of very well-crafted short stories presented in a narrative between Lazarus and some authority figure. Why this is taking place is a creative conceit; to tell you would be a spoiler.

In each narrative, Lazarus touches on his deceased wife, first in uncomfortable omissions, then in oblique evasions, and finally just plain outright telling his audience (and, by proxy, R.A.H. telling us) that she is dead.

R.A.H. tells us, "His wife is dead, I'm going to tell you what happened, and when I do, you're going to cry."

He did, and I did.

Yes, this is a recommendation. It's a large tome, but you need only plow through half of it. (As I said, the latter half is much poorer. Forgettable, in my opinion.) And, every so often, we have interstitials by way of The Notebooks of Lazarus Long which consists completely of quotes such as the above.

Yes, you can probably find all of those gems on some page online. (Back in ye olden daeys of Unix, you could also find them in the fortune file.) Sure, you can, but that's like foregoing the feast for dessert.

It's sweet, but ultimately empty.

Go read the book. Then come back and tell me if I'm full of offal, or if you agree.