Robin Sloan Quotes

"[...] We keep a record for every member, and for every customer who might yet become a member, in order to track their work." He paused, then added, "Some of them are working very hard indeed."

"What are they doing?"

"My boy," he said, eyebrows raised. As if nothing could be more obvious: "They are reading."

I feel a pang of pity for the logbook, its secrets are all plucked out in minutes by this whirlwind of light and metal. Books used to be pretty high-tech, back in the day. Not anymore.

"Some of them are working hard indeed."
"What are they doing?"
"My boy!" he said, eyebrows raised. As if nothing could be more obvious: "They are reading."

The internet: always proving that you’re not quite as special as you suspected

Your parents are weirdos, in the best possible way. They do not celebrate birthdays; never in your life have you received a present on the tenth of December. Instead, you are given books on the days that their authors were born.

The right book exactly, at exactly the right time.

This girl has the spark of life. This is my primary filter for new friends (girl- and otherwise) and the highest compliment I can pay. I've tried many times to figure out exactly what ignites it — what cocktail of characteristics come together in the cold, dark cosmos to form a star. I know it's mostly in the face — not just the eyes, but the brow, the cheeks, the mouth, and the micromuscles that connect them all.

Kat's micromuscles are very attractive.

"Rosemary, why do you love books so much?"
(...)
"Well, actually, I love books because books are my best friends."

Is this a book club? How do they join? Do they ever pay? These are the things I ask myself when I sit here alone, after Tyndall or Lapin or Fedorov has left. Tyndall is probably the weirdest, but they’re all pretty weird: all graying, single-minded, seemingly imported from some other time or place. There are no iPhones. There’s no mention of current events or pop culture or anything, really, other than the books. I definitely think of them as a club, though I have no evidence that they know one another. Each comes in alone and never says a word about anything other than the object of his or her current, frantic fascination.

I sit up straight and do the first thing a person is supposed to do in an emergency, which is send a text message.

Stuff that used to be hard just isn't hard anymore!

Typographers are designers; designers are my people.

Maybe I'll just go ahead and buy her the Tufte book. I'll bring it wrapped in brown paper. Wait- is that weird? It's an expensive book. Maybe there's a low-key paperback edition. I could buy it on Amazon. That's stupid, I work at a bookstore. (Could Amazon ship it fast enough?)

Lost in the shadows of the shelves, I almost fall off the ladder. I am exactly halfway up. The floor of the bookstore is far below me, the surface of a planet I've left behind.

All the secrets of the world worth knowing are hiding in plain sight.