Have partner and ex read Heinlein? (Weirdly, I feel like he wouldn't--maybe because I've read Heinlein, and I perceive him as Smart and Literary and Above Such Petty Things as whatever I like.) But that's a sentiment that Heinlein talked about a lot, and having just read The Cat Who Walks Through Walls again (much queerer than I remembered) I think that saying might be a near-verbatim quote from the first couple of chapters.